Mulheres a Bordo is launched and will encourage female presence in leadership roles in the port sector

The Women on Board project was born from Flávia Takafashi’s discomfort with the invisibility of women in the foreign trade market (Sílvio Luiz/AT)

The Mulheres a Bordo project, by Grupo Tribuna, was officially launched this Wednesday (15) at Intermodal South America, the largest logistics trade fair in Latin America, in São Paulo. The initiative was announced during the Intermodal Women Network, bringing together approximately 100 women from companies across various foreign trade segments.

The president of the Mulheres a Bordo Committee and former director of the National Waterway Transportation Agency (Antaq), Flávia Takafashi, presented the project’s premises, whose goals are to promote the value of women in the waterway sector — still predominantly male — and to discuss strategic proposals to encourage the increase of women professionals in executive and leadership positions.

Flávia was the first woman appointed as a director of Antaq and left the position in February of this year. “Talking about female leadership is a space I will always occupy, which is why I made a point of being here today”, she stated.

The executive explained that Mulheres a Bordo was born from the “discomfort” regarding the invisibility of women in the foreign trade market. “We wanted to know who these women are and provide opportunities for growth and development, and Grupo Tribuna, as a media group, was the channel that made it possible to discuss the complexity of this sector.”

Flávia presented the results of a survey conducted by Antaq on female participation in the labor market of the waterway sector. Women represent only 17.8% of the workforce in the Brazilian port sector, with a slight increase of 0.5% over two years, according to the 2024 Survey on Gender Equity in the Waterway Sector, released in 2025.

“The agency also broke this down by segment. Cabotage has the highest number of women in management positions. So, we need to analyze what these women have done so remarkably to occupy these roles, so that we can follow these paths as well.”

According to Flávia, Mulheres a Bordo emerges as a proposal to boost women’s careers in leadership positions in the sector, based on the analysis of the data from the survey released by Antaq last year.

“Beyond understanding these numbers, we analyzed what needed to be done to foster debate and create greater capacity for these women to occupy spaces and rise to the highest management positions”, she said.

The committee president also took the opportunity to invite the women present to participate in the project. “Collectives can bring even more protagonism for women into this space.”

“Cabotage has the highest number of women in management positions. So, we need to analyze what these women have done so remarkably to occupy these roles, so that we can follow these paths as well”, says Flávia Takafashi, former director of Antaq and president of the Women on Board project Committee (Sílvio Luiz/AT)

A space for discussion Speaking to A Tribuna , Flávia Takafashi stated that launching the project at Intermodal holds symbolic value. “Intermodal is increasingly consolidating itself as a space for discussion and business opportunities and has now opened room to also discuss the role of women in this logistics segment.”

The Business Director of Grupo Tribuna , Demetrio Amono, highlighted the fair’s initiative in opening space for the Intermodal Women Network and hopes that next year “the topic of female leadership will be part of the program with greater relevance.”

Demetrio noted that Grupo Tribuna is a national reference in journalistic coverage of the port sector and, for this reason, embraced the initiative to strengthen both discourse and practice in favor of increasing female participation in one of the most competitive and promising markets.

Agenda The 1st Mulheres a Bordo Meeting will be held on May 5 at the Grupo Tribuna auditorium in Santos. The 2nd meeting is scheduled for October 1, with the location yet to be defined — Brasília is one of the options under consideration. The International Mission to Panama will take place between August 18 and 21. Panama, known for its canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is a strategic logistics hub for maritime trade.