Carlos Wizard Martins Takes Over Ministry of Health’s Science Secretariat

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Billionaire Carlos Wizard Martins, owner of the Sforza Group, a holding company that includes around 20 businesses, will take over the Ministry of Health’s Secretariat of Science, Technology and Strategic Supplies in Health (SCTIE). The entrepreneur’s press office confirmed the information.

Wizard had already been working as an advisor to the Ministry since late May, and had been meeting with the interim minister’s team, General Eduardo Pazuello. The post had remained vacant since Nelson Teich’s departure, which occurred days before Wizard began his cooperation.

Founder of the English language school Wizard, sold to the British group Pearson for R$2 billion (US$372,600) the entrepreneur currently works in the fast-food areas, with the networks Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell; in healthy food, with Mundo Verde network; and in the education sector, with the English language school Wise Up, which he controls in partnership with entrepreneur Flávio Augusto da Silva.

Wizard recently declared he had been invited by João Dória to run for Mayor of Campinas, in São Paulo’s inland region, where he lives. However, the entrepreneur said he declined the invitation and that he has no political aspirations. Wizard also said he is a friend of Doria, currently one of President Jair Bolsonaro’s main political opponents.

On the pandemic, Wizard said he was in line with the President’s ideas of relaxing the quarantine. “It doesn’t make sense in Brasília, or anywhere else, to close schools, industry, and trade where there are no cases,” said the entrepreneur. “We need to analyze case by case, it cannot be linear, with a single rule from Oiapoque to Chuí [Brazil’s northernmost and southernmost cities]”.

Last year, Wizard and his wife moved to the Amazon-region state Roraima, where they took part in a humanitarian mission with Venezuelan refugees. The entrepreneur helped to welcome the Venezuelans at the border and direct them to other cities in the interior of the country. He helped about 12,000 refugees to settle in cities in Brazil’s south and southeast regions.

Source: Exame