About

Decoding Human Behavior by Measuring the Immeasurable

For over a decade, Maria Alice Maia's career has been driven by a single mission: to decode the complex drivers of human behavior and translate those insights into tangible business results. In each role, she has developed new methods to measure what is often considered immeasurable—from implicit consumer preferences to the intangible value of employee satisfaction. This journey, recognized by awards like the Santander Entrepreneurship Award and Startup Chile, has now evolved to bridge industry and academia. As an MSc candidate at FGV EBAPE and a research assistant in research from both FGV and the University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government, she applies this same analytical and behavioral approach to tackle urgent questions of public policy, political polarization, and trust in technology.

Success Cases

Some of the projects led by Maria Alice throughout her +10 years of experience.

1. Decoding What "Value" Means for a Business

At Itaú Unibanco, she created models to measure the financial impact of intangibles like "customer satisfaction."

At Frost & Sullivan, she decoded market signals to guide M&A and pricing decisions.

2. Decoding the Dynamics of Public Trust and Political Behavior

As a research assistant in a conjoint project from FGV and the Blavatnik School of Government (University of Oxford), she decodes the drivers of Affective Polarization, applying advanced quantitative methods in R to measure the preferences and biases that shape political identity and division.

3. Decoding the Drivers of a High-Performance Culture

She built Ambev's People Analytics area from scratch, measuring abstract concepts like "Engagement" and "Inclusion."

She also developed an analytical tool to make 360° leader evaluations fairer and data-driven, using an evidence-based tool to reduce human biases.

4. Decoding New Markets to Architect Growth

As Director of New Business at Alura, she increased revenue by 530% by measuring and optimizing the effectiveness of different sales approaches and client personas.

As an entrepreneur at NaHora.com, she used demand elasticity modeling to build a dynamic pricing system.

At Grupo Águia, she led the project to create the holding's data lake to analyze consumer behavior across eight companies.

5. Decoding the Subconscious Consumer and User

At Ambev, she led "Lie to Me," a project that used neuroscience (EEG, eye-tracking, IAT) to measure emotional reactions and decode implicit preferences. She also decoded the digital customer journey to optimize D2C and B2B strategies.

As an MSc candidate at FGV EBAPE, she researches user behavior and trust in AI to inform the design of more human-centric systems.

6. Decoding How Leaders and Organizations Learn and Innovate

At CNEC and Grupo Águia, she designed courses to empower leaders to measure their own hypotheses and make data-driven decisions.

As a Managing Partner at Auge Growth, she applies this philosophy directly, helping companies measure their intangibles to build growth strategies.