Fear of failure is a topic that Leticia Gonçalves, president of Monsanto Europe, is passionate about. She faced such fears years ago while working for Monsanto in her home country of Brazil. In 2006, Gonçalves was asked to take on a management job at corporate headquarters in St. Louis, but she balked. “I didn’t think I was competent enough,” she recalls. Sleepless nights, butterflies in the stomach, and long talks with her husband, a lawyer who would have to give up his practice, finally yielded a decision to say yes.
