Pursuing knowledge around the world

From Brazil to China, new finance Professor Wlamir Xavier’s studies have taken him around the globe.

Courtney Grable | 09/21/2023

They say traveling is the best education you can get. For Wlamir Xavier, Lipscomb’s new professor of finance, he’s had the opportunity to live out that saying with an academic journey spanning 18 prestigious institutions, four continents and a multitude of countries, all of which has led him to his latest post, carrying out God’s calling for him here at Lipscomb. 

Born and raised in Brazil, Xavier discovered his passion for business as a young boy. However, when it came time for him to attend college, there were no prestigious business schools in his home country. “Historically people used to study economics and then do some additional work or graduate courses in business administration,” says Xavier, “but I decided to go to the best and most famous university in the country” to get a head start on any career in the business world that he chose. 

“That was my decision—to create a personal brand,” he said. And that he did, creating expertise in a blend of chemical engineering, IT and international business strategy. Xavier has created a resume with degrees, research and teaching experience at universities in Brazil, France, Denmark, Colombia, China and the U.S., where he conducted research at the Wharton School of Business among others.

Xavier began his role as Lipscomb professor this fall and arrived on campus as one of the three scholars holding the 2023 Bill Pollard Faith & Business Research Fellowship. Sponsored by the Seattle Pacific University Center of Faith & Business, the fellowship includes a one-week residency in Seattle, use of the faith and work library at the university and cohort-based research collaboration on a project addressing business-faith integration.

Xavier’s research is a case study on ServiceMaster (now Terminix), a once Fortune-500 firm with solid Christian principles founded in the 1930s. The company’s leadership decided to abandon Christian directives around the 2000s. “Through archival data and interviews with former executives, I am conducting an analysis of the board of directors’ composition and ownership structure to understand why the company decided to change its mission,” said Xavier.

Even as he was preparing for a cross-country move from California to Nashville this year, he was busy presenting at Academy of International Business (AIB) 2023 conferences in Las Vegas and São Paulo, Brazil, and had papers accepted for meetings of the Academy of Management Meeting in Boston, and the AIB conference in Warsaw, Poland, which were presented by his co-authors.

Xavier comes to Lipscomb from Biola University, in La Mirada, California, where he has taught courses in finance, economics and international management. His research focuses on the business group phenomenon in emerging countries, corporate governance and non-marketing strategies. He has more than 30 peer-reviewed publications.

Xavier’s academic journey began with an engineering degree at Instituto Militar de Engenharia (IME) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the first engineering school in the Americas, founded in 1821, and the highest ranked engineering school in Brazil. The rigorous program, which only accepted 55 students each year, prepared and equipped students for careers in any field upon graduation, said Xavier.

“Usually, engineering prepares you to pursue several career paths because students have a solid, quantitative background and extensive decision-making skills,” he said. “They can easily go into finance and anything related to quantitative aspects. That’s what I did. When I graduated, I had opportunities at big banks: Chase, Citibank and several consulting firms.”

He decided to go with International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). There, Xavier underwent seven months of a trainee program before beginning his work in the marketing division. “At the time, those companies—the big banks, multinational companies—whenever they hired someone fresh from college, they used to provide a training program,” said Xavier. “Working at IBM, I was in a classroom 9-5 for seven months before entering an office or even seeing a customer.”
Freshly armed with that extensive training, Xavier decided to pursue a formal degree in management from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC), one of the top five universities in Brazil. 

After six years at IBM, Xavier decided it was time to found his own company, Paço Serviços Ltd., which had licensing with IBM to resell mainframe software. “As soon as I was settled, I started my master’s degree in production engineering. At the time, my firm was doing IT services selling hardware and software services,” he says. “I did a thesis on multi-criteria decision aid, which is how one makes complex decisions when there are many variables…how you make trade-offs and how to compensate for all the pros and cons.” 

After graduating with his MS in engineering, Xavier began his doctorate program in business administration and tourism at the University of Vale de Itajaí in Brazil. During this time, Xavier studied at the University of Paris Dauphine in Paris, France, as a visiting scholar prior to becoming a visiting scholar and research assistant at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, one of the highest ranked business schools in the world.  

Upon completion of his doctorate, Xavier decided to pursue a second Ph.D. in business administration from Fundação Getulio Vargas, the most prestigious business school in Brazil, and received a grant to do research as a visiting scholar at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. 

“Initially, I had no intention to focus on academics as a career, but I started teaching as an adjunct part time in Brazil,” remarks Xavier. “By the time I finished this doctoral program, my mindset had changed. I considered becoming an academic, full-time faculty professor.” He began looking abroad for such opportunities. 

After applying across the world, Xavier moved to New Mexico where he decided to pursue a graduate certificate in finance at Texas Tech University Lubbock and become a full-time professor at Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU).

Xavier soon found himself once again traveling the world for academics, but this time, instead of being a student, he was a professor. His talents brought him to the Universidad de La Sabana in Colombia, where he served as a visiting professor; and later, to serve as a professor of international business and finance at Biola University. During his first year at Biola, he served at Chongqing Technical Business University in China as a distinguished professor. 

After traveling the world and studying at universities as both a scholar and professor, Biola University was the first Christian higher education institution where Xavier taught.

“I became a Christian as an adult, and after I had most of my education,” he says. “It was like a blank page and I wanted to fill that blank page, so I started studying the Bible in several ways and connecting with people.” 

Intrigued by knowing Scripture, Xavier utilized his time at Biola to take as many classes as he could in theology and Bible in order to pursue a Bible and Theology Graduate Certificate, before beginning his third doctorate program in Christian higher education studies. 

Xavier began teaching at Lipscomb this fall, and is excited to share his passion for learning with his students in the College of Business as they experience higher education and discover their purpose and vocation.

“You’re calling in life is something that gives you joy,” he says. “If it’s your calling, it’s because God has called you to do so, and if God calls you to do so, God is faithful enough to give you the tools to do that. He’s not asking a turtle to fly. The animals he asks to fly have wings. 

“We are the same,” he continued. “If God asks you to do something, it is a calling. He’ll give you the tools, the abilities, skills or at least the opportunity to acquire them…That’s God’s perfect plan for you, and that’s what God has equipped you to be. So, everything is aligned.”