Marina Belz had a rewarding career in São Paulo Brazil, creating advertising campaigns for Brazil’s fast-growing financial services sector. She loved her work—so much that it had almost become part of her identity.
She was also a client of one of Brazil’s most innovative brokerage firms. It was modern, accessible, and designed for regular people like her. But she never knew where that inspiration came from.
Years later, after falling in love with an American, Marina moved to San Antonio, Texas. She left behind a thriving career and found herself in a new country, a new culture, in search of work that would once again give her a sense of purpose.
Then she came across an open contract position in financial services advertising. Perfect. The company name was withheld, but the words and phrases the firm used to described itself—innovative, challenging the status quo, transforming the finance industry—felt familiar. And it felt right. She applied.
When she found out the role was with Charles Schwab, she was curious—and then deeply impressed. She quickly learned that the reason it sounded familiar was because Schwab had inspired the very brokerage firm she used back home. The CEO of her hometown firm was very open about how he had used Schwab as a model to expand choice and access to investing within the asset management industry in Brazil, just as Chuck Schwab had done in the U.S.—Schwab had played a role in transforming her home country’s investment landscape, from thousands of miles away.
Marina Belz
That’s when everything clicked. This wasn’t just a job—it was a full-circle moment.
Marina was offered the contract role in early 2021 and quickly knew she’d found the purpose she’d thought she lost when she left Brazil. Within seven months, she was hired full-time by Schwab.
Now, when Marina tells people back home where she works, she says it proudly, “I work for the firm that helped make the model of accessible and affordable personal investment possible.”
Schwab’s vision didn’t just shape the U.S. by getting more people invested—it quietly changed Brazil, too. And Marina gets to be part of that ongoing story.
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