A Book of My LifeGabriel Ferraz
Cornell Johnson MBA Application

A Book of My Life

Gabriel Ferraz
A story in ten chapters
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Chapter 1

The Foundation

Curitiba, Brazil
Family
Family
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Friendship
Friendship
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Before any uniform, any deal, any title, there was Curitiba. I grew up in a city that taught me two things that have never left me: the value of family and the power of friendship. They are the foundation everything else was built on.

Sport
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Chapter 2

The First Discipline

The habit that came before the uniform

Before the uniform, before any deal, sport was my first teacher. It taught me that results are built in the hours no one sees, that pressure is a privilege, and that losing is not defeat but information. Show up, compete, recover, come back sharper. Long before any boardroom, the field taught me how to lose well and how to win.

Brazilian Army
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Chapter 3

The Uniform

At 18, I entered officer school and graduated first in my cohort, earning the Medalha Correa Lima. Five and a half years of service followed, and with them, everything the uniform teaches. Discipline, resilience, and the kind of leadership that is earned in front of your men, not granted by rank.

Medalha Correa Lima · First in cohort
Five and a half years of service
Officer greeting
On duty
Physical training
Brothers in arms
Army by dayBy day · Army
University by nightBy night · University
Chapter 4

Two Lives at Once

While serving full time, I attended university at night. No margin for error. No room for excuses. Just the discipline of showing up to both, every single day.

Chapter 5 · Family, Legacy, and the Hardest Negotiation

My father passed away, and the business he built was weeks from collapse.

I was not an advisor. I was the family.

I sold assets, renegotiated debt, and saved it. Corporate distress, I learned, is not a financial problem. It is a human one.

In memory · A legacy kept
With my father
With my father
With my father
Chapter 6 · Distressed Private Equity

Finding Value in the Wreckage

  distressed_assets — live

After navigating my own family's crisis, I chose to make distress my profession. That decision meant leaving Curitiba for São Paulo, the financial center of South America, where the deals are bigger and nobody waits for you to catch up. In private equity, I learned to read broken capital structures, price risk others ran from, and find value where the market had given up.

> capital_structures.parse() → value.found()

I chose to make distress my profession.

Gabriel Ferraz, São Paulo
Chapter 7 · CFA Charter

The Credential Nobody Gave Me

I
Level I
II
Level II
III
Level III · Charter
0 examssequential · passed in order
0 hourshundreds of them, alone

While working full time in private equity, I pursued the CFA designation. I did not do it because someone asked me to. I did it because I knew the gap between where I was and where I wanted to be was technical, and I was the only one who could close it.

2025Invited to mentor young CFA professionals.
Chapter 8 · Community & Service

Giving Back

I did not get here alone. Beyond the deals and the exams, I give my time to two causes that matter to me.

Children in Need
Humanitarian missions, giving my time and hands to children who need it most.
Volunteer
Veterans
A non-profit I founded, helping veterans transition to civilian life.
Founder
In the field
New York
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Chapter 9 · Cornell Johnson MBA

The Bridge

Everything I have learned
Everything I want to become

The MBA is not an ending point. It is a bridge between everything I have learned and everything I want to become. Johnson is where I will sharpen the advisory skills, build the institutional network, and gain the platform to operate at the level I am targeting. The next chapter begins here.

New York skyscrapers
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Chapter 10 · New York

The Financial District

My goal is to join the Levered Finance and Restructuring group of a leading investment bank in New York, advising companies at their most critical moments.

The city where the hardest problems get solved.