João Carlos Di Genio, who died on February 12, 2022 at the age of 82, revolutionized the Brazilian education. His family came from the province of Salerno, the Italy.
Born on February 27, 1939 in the city of Lavinia, in the interior of São Paulo, Di Genio was the son of Carmine e Maria Tozzi Di Genio. Her father was a merchant born in the small town of Gioi, in the region of Campania, province of Salerno, the Italy, on February 7, 1901.
He decided to come to Brazil to try his luck and ended up settling down and raising his family in the interior of the state of São Paulo, with his wife. Maria Tozzi.
Moving to São Paulo
In 1961, the family went to live in the capital São Paulo, when their son João Carlos Di Genio came first in his medical course in two faculties.
At the same time as he was studying medicine at University of São Paulo (USP), Di Genio began working as a Physics teacher at the 9th of July. In college, he had as a classmate the doctor, now nationally known, Drauzio Varella.
In 1965, at the age of 26, with great idealism and enthusiasm, the medical students João Carlos Di Genio and Drauzio Varela and the doctors Roger Patti e Tadasi Itto founded a small preparatory course for medical schools in the central region of the city of São Paulo.
The beginning of success
The success achieved in the exams that year by the students prepared by those young teachers meant that, in 1966, the Objective Course became one of the best known in the city.
As time went by, Di Genio and his partners opened more units at Colégio Olímpico and advanced to higher education in 1972, with the creation of Objective colleges, which came to be called Paulista University (Unip)In 1988.
The prep course and Colégio Objective became one of the most respected educational groups in the country and Unip became the largest private university in Brazil. Currently, there are more than 300 thousand students mid-level and 530 thousand in higher education.
This year, Unip launched its first medical course, with a monthly fee of R$9. Until 2017, the university was a non-profit business.
The Di Genio formula
Di Genio stimulated business growth organically, without relying on mergers and acquisitions. In 2008, his educational company received a purchase proposal from the American group Apollo for $ 2,5 billion, but he didn't accept it.
Less than 10 years later, in 2017, Unip was already earning the same amount per year as the proposal. His stance towards business was at odds with the path followed by other private education groups, such as Cogna (formerly Kroton), Yduqs (formerly Estácio) and Ânima Group, which invested in acquisitions to consolidate and grow in the sector.
Music and communication
Di Genio also maintained a strong connection with culture. Back in 1972, he created the music festival. Fico (Internal Festival of ColégioObjective)which already has 50 years of history and has launched musical careers such as Rogério Flausino (Jota Quest), Herbert Viana (Paralamas do Sucesso) and Dinho Ouro Preto (Starting Capital).
The Grupo Objective conglomerate also includes media companies, such as the television networks RBI TV, Mega TV, the extinct MIX TV and the radio stations Mix FM and Trianon Radio.
The group's businesses cover all levels of education, from early childhood education to graduate, and also involve the production of teaching material and software, used not only in the network itself, but in several other educational centers.
The group also has a publishing house, printing and publicity agency, dominating all stages of the education business.
Cattle breeding
Di Genio, who left his wife Sandra Miessa and three children, he also had businesses in the agricultural sector. He was the creator of nelore breed in your five farms, Fazenda Di Genio, in Pereira Barreto (SP), Fazenda Aimoré, in Juti (MS), Fazenda Águas Claras, in Iguatemi (MS) and the Maruins and Santa Maria farms, both in Machadinho D'Oeste (RO).
The Italian mamma
These achievements are the fruit of decades of work by a family of Italians in Brazil. “Every day my mother gives me some change”, said Di Genio, in an interview in 2003, when Maria was already 88 years old and he was already a successful businessman, owner of the network of schools Objective, Unip, radio and television networks.
His mother lived with him and perhaps did not see the size of the empire that the son was still conquering. She maintained the maternal spirit of every mother, with the special touch of italian mamma, which certainly contributed in many ways to its successful climb.
By Roberto Schiavon/Italianism (with genealogical research of Pierina D'Andrea)
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