Rodrigo Tavares is a Guest Professor at the Nova School of Business and Economics (Nova SBE), where he teaches courses on sustainable finance and corporate sustainability in master's and executive education programmes. He is also the founder and CEO of Granito Group, a London-based group dedicated to advancing the sustainable economy through strategic consulting, financial advisory, and policy & research services.

Between 2011 and 2014, he served as Head of the Special Advisory for International Affairs for the São Paulo State Government (currently the Secretariat for International Relations). From 2008 to 2010, he drafted the annual reports of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Africa's development. He also worked for five years at the United Nations University, the UN think tank, in Belgium and Ethiopia.

His academic background includes the universities of Gothenburg, Sweden (PhD), Columbia (postdoctoral research fellow), California-Berkeley (research fellow) and Harvard (senior research fellow). He has also completed executive courses at Harvard University in negotiation (2006) and global leadership (2021); at Princeton University in energy transition (2022); and at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in Artificial Intelligence (2023).

He is the author of four books and dozens of scientific articles on International Relations and economic development. His most recent book is Paradiplomacy: Cities and States as Global Players (Oxford University Press).

He was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (2017) and a Young Leader by the Government of Quebec (2011).

He is a columnist for Folha de São Paulo and Expresso.