Fred Vieira (’13, ’15)
Posted on: December 2, 2025
From the Tennis Court to Corporate America.
Fred Vieira’s path to success started in Brazil.
Gifted in tennis and hoping to jump start a career in business, Vieira made the move to Tigerville, South Carolina where he began to understand his calling.
“At that time, I wasn’t an American. I didn’t understand what I had around for me, but as a Christian, I knew what kind of environment I wanted to be in,” he said. “I knew I wanted to find a better balance between athletics and my education.”
On the tennis court, Vieira was competing at a high level, helping the team win an NCCAA National Championship in 2011.
“I was blessed with the opportunity to be the one that clinched the final point, he said. “It was a very cool experience for me.
“My junior year, I was able to serve at the school as number one for singles and doubles and be the captain. It was a lot of responsibility, but it was nice as well. It forced me to go into a growth mindset,” Vieira added.
Tennis became a vehicle for which Vieira would learn a lot of important lessons about leadership.
“One thing athlete have in common is drive. The drive to not be ordinary,” he said. “It’s motivating, but the most rewarding thing is being able to have an impact on other peoples lives in the process.”
The sport also opened the door for Vieira to share his faith.
“The biggest responsibility I felt while playing was being able to share the gospel with my teammates. I knew that some guys may not be believers or maybe they were new believers. I was in a position to influence them, whether positively or negatively,” he said. “Ultimately, it’s not on me to change their lives, but I knew I wanted to be planting seeds because I was part of that process for them.”
Vieira graduated with a business degree in 2013, also earning a Master of Business Administration from NGU in 2015 while serving as a graduate assistant on the tennis team.
Vieira’s drive to not be ordinary propelled him into what has already been a successful career, as he now leads the brand marketing department for Milwaukee Tool’s Latin America division.
“In the first 16 months here, I learned more than what I learned in eight years at my previous job,” he said. “That comes with a price tag. It’s long hours and more pressure. But it also compound growth. Every month you’re trying to get even better, very similar to what athletes go through. It’s been great.”
Vieira credits the experiences he had at NGU with guiding him through the early stages of his career.
“I think I was one of the crazy students that really enjoyed Dr. (Jon) Boulet’s class and the five-hour tests,” he said with a laugh. “I remember that I would get to the test with a big water bottle and he would joke about it.
“I think when you’re in college, you think you know a lot of things, but in reality, we have perceptions of a lot of things,” Vieira said. “The best advice I can give a student today is to try to gain perceptions from other people. That can be done through different internships or shadowing someone else. Try to have hands-on experiences. Try to have applications of theory into real-life professions, that way you can strengthen your own perspective.”
