At FIT, what’s learned in the classroom is only part of the picture. There are internships, industry collaborations, and travel, among other forms of learning. The School of Graduate Studies’ Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing and Management (CFMM) program has always incorporated travel abroad into its curriculum, but this year, the class of 2026 traveled for the first time to Brazil and Mexico, in recognition of the growing importance of Latin America to the global economy and the growth of beauty in the Latin American markets.
“We’re so happy that we were able to extend the program’s research overseas to Latin America,” said Stephan Kanlian, associate chair of the program. “It was our first visit to Latin America. [It] is growing in importance and it was a really nice way to frame an overseas field study course to visit the two largest markets in the region.”
A highlight of the trip was to Natura in São Paolo, Brazil, a major producer of fragrance, where the team met CFMM alumna Bruna Seve Patko, senior global marketing and business manager at Natura.
CFMM students Juliana Rodrigues, global chief compliance officer at Coty, and Lamis Alkhatib, who moved to New York and joined the CFMM program to break into the business, were on the trip and couldn’t have been more pleased with the outcomes and how the visit impacted their work.
“It was a personal dream of mine [to visit Natura] because I work for a competitor,” said Rodrigues, who is a native Brazilian. “We had a very complete visit. We were able to see the office, we were able to see the plant, the way they organize it, the way they store byproducts. And it was an amazing day to see how they are producing good quality Brazilian origin products, which are also connected with the culture.”
Alkhatib said, “Something that I found so starkly different in Brazil versus the U.S. is just how much pride they have for the country and things that are locally sourced, locally owned. I feel like that really gave us such a valuable insight to the market for the brands here; this is a market you really have to tailor your products for.”
“It was an amazing learning experience to see and hear from all the companies we visited, and FIT curated the visits very well,” Rodrigues said, adding, “We had a very good mix of all the Brazilian brands and were able to see how the market works and how Brazilian beauty is seen and how beauty is sold in Brazil. We had the opportunity to do a deep dive into how the Brazilian consumer behaves, which is very, very different from in the U.S. Very clearly, Brazilians are obsessed with beauty. Beauty is a part of our routine from the time we are born.”