Maria das Grace Silva Foster

Maria das Gracas Silva Foster is the first female CEO of Petrobras, Brazil's oil and gas multinational corporation.

Born in poverty in Morro do Adeus in Rio de Janeiro, which became a crime-ridden favela (a “slum" on the outskirts of some of Brazil's largest cities), she made money by picking through trash and selling recyclable material as a child. She was encouraged by her mother to succeed, and graduated with a degree in chemical engineering from Fluminense Federal University in 1978. The same year, Foster joined Petrobras as an engineering intern in its exploration and production division.

She later acquired a master's degree in chemical engineering and a postgraduate degree in nuclear engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro , as well as an MBA in economics from the Getúlio Vargas Foundation.

Foster was said to have been the first woman to step onto a Petrobras offshore oil platform to install production equipment. She spent her entire career at Petrobras, particularly in the production and exploration area. In 2007, the CEO of Petrobras José Sergio Gabrielli de Azevedonamed Foster the first female head of Petrobras Gás, making her a member of the company's board of directors and responsible for natural gas production.

In February 2012, at the insistence of then-Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Petrobras's board made Foster CEO of the company. However, after responding to a scandal related to President Rousseff that led to her 2016 impeachment, Foster's handling of the situation drew criticism, and she resigned in 2015. Although Foster’s time as CEO of Petrobras was short-lived, her ascension from poverty to becoming a major company’s CEO is significant and remarkable.