Petrobras First Female CEO Is Rousseff’s Response to Delayed Oil

As Maria das Gracas Silva Foster took over as chief executive officer at Petroleo Brasileiro SA, she couldn’t help giving a shout-out to two forces that have shaped her life.

The first went to Petrobras, the world’s biggest deep-water oil producer, on whose Rio de Janeiro stage she was standing on Feb. 13 to be sworn in as CEO, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its July issue. The second was to her mother, who decades ago encouraged a work ethic that propelled her young daughter from a poor neighborhood to the pinnacle of her profession.