Between recipes that win over new audiences, videos that bring people together, and ceramic pieces inspired by the Pantanal, women across Mato Grosso do Sul are turning creativity into thriving career paths. Their journeys prove how personal passions, lived experiences, and self-driven initiatives can evolve into full-fledged businesses.
Bruna Lopes, Kendra Morimoto, and Marina Torrecilha work in completely different industries, yet they share the drive to transform their interests into a livelihood. Whether through gastronomy, digital content creation, or visual arts, their stories highlight diverse ways of entrepreneurship and carving out space in competitive markets. If you’re looking for inspiration to turn a side passion into your main gig, these local trailblazers show you exactly how it’s done.
Chef Bruna Lopes: When a passion for food becomes a business
Chef Bruna Lopes’s career brings together experiences from totally different worlds. With a degree in journalism and a background in the banking sector, she found in gastronomy the chance to build a brand-new path. Originally from Guararapes, in the countryside of São Paulo, Bruna developed her career in Campo Grande, where she founded Pasta in Casa, a venture dedicated to fresh, handmade pasta.
Her connection to cooking grew out of family traditions and a genuine love for food. As her business expanded, artisanal production took center stage, connecting her craft with people eager to taste and experience her creations.
Recognition quickly stretched beyond Mato Grosso do Sul. In 2022, Bruna won the Prêmio Dólmã following her participation in Enchefs. A few years later, in 2025, she competed on TV Globo’s Chef de Alto Nível, bringing national visibility to her work. Beyond the kitchen, she uses digital platforms to share recipes and food content with her community of over 2 million Instagram followers.
Kendra Morimoto: Building a career in the digital space
Social media is no longer just a space for casual scrolling—it’s a legitimate arena for professional growth. That’s where Campo Grande-based influencer Kendra Morimoto built her career, working across content creation, social media management, and videomaking.
Kendra’s rise mirrors the expansion of the creator economy, where digital storytellers partner with brands to promote products, services, and ad campaigns. This business model has turned social feeds into dynamic storefronts, bridging the gap between companies and consumers through authentic communication.
Her portfolio spans multiple audiovisual formats, focusing on videos and posts designed to spark real audience interaction. With more than 30,000 followers on Instagram, Kendra blends creativity, humor, lifestyle, and relatability into every piece of content she produces.
Marina Torrecilha: Shaping Cerrado and Pantanal stories in clay
Nature has always been woven into Marina Torrecilha’s story. Born in Campo Grande, she grew up on a small farm surrounded by the native vegetation and wildlife of the Cerrado. As the daughter of a biologist and an agronomist, she developed an early bond with the environment—an influence that became the core of her artistic identity.
A Visual Arts graduate from the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS), Marina started out in digital illustration and character design for games. During the pandemic in 2020, she reconnected with clay, a medium she had first explored in college. What began as a hobby took on deeper meaning during the devastating Pantanal wildfires, when Marina donated part of the proceeds from her first ceramic sales to Instituto Comitiva Esperança. Supporting communities affected by the fires ended up transforming her professional trajectory.
Out of that turning point came Copa de Barro, a brand that translates Brazilian biodiversity and culture into handcrafted pieces. Her designs bring Cerrado and Pantanal wildlife—like jaguars, capybaras, macaws, and anteaters—together with rock art motifs and Brazilian folklore characters. Alongside her studio work, Marina uses Instagram to pull back the curtain on her creative process, sharing behind-the-scenes videos and daily routines with her 93,000 followers.
Different Paths, One Shared Drive
Even while operating in distinct universes, Bruna, Kendra, and Marina show how creativity can take many shapes and anchor a sustainable career. Their journeys span culinary entrepreneurship, digital communication, and handmade art—fields that demand dedication, skill, and adaptability.
More than individual success stories, their paths reflect the diversity of female-led work in Mato Grosso do Sul. Across different spaces, these women are building independent projects, sharing knowledge online, and energizing the industries they’re part of.
If you want to experience this creative energy in person, stop by the female entrepreneurship fair celebrating the grand opening of Angí Chocolates’s new space and café on Saturday, Nov. 14. Organized by entrepreneur Beatriz, the free public event runs from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Rua Vitório Zeola, 180, in Campo Grande, offering an afternoon of networking, content creation, and celebration of local women-owned businesses.