Juan Tain Varela

Varela got the chance to study best practices in industrial engineering in one of Brazil's biggest pulp and paper production locations over the next two years. He also enrolled in Universidade Estadual do Maranho, the state university in Maranho's capital city of So Lus, in general education and engineering studies. While attending lessons, he became interested in finance and got his first exposure to the possibility of internet-based and digital marketing activities.

Varela interned with his father's firm during the summer of 2007 and was mentored by a Brasilian-Canadian national who resided in So Lus from October 2007 to March 2009. Varela attended online classes to strengthen his English language skills during this period. He filed for admission as a transitory student at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, Florida, in early 2009, and was granted an Academic Student (F-1) Visa to begin studies in the autumn of 2009.