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"Only my mom and my wife call me Carlos," he said. "Everyone else calls me Brito."

Brito earned a mechanical engineering degree at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. After college, he took a job with automaker Daimler-Benz in Germany, then went to work for oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC in Brazil.

By the late 1980s, he sought another experience. He was accepted into the MBA program at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business but couldn't afford his first year's tuition. So a friend at Shell arranged for Brito to meet prominent investment banker Jorge Paulo Lemann, the founder of Banco Garantia, known as Brazil's Goldman Sachs.

Lemann, a Harvard-educated former tennis star, agreed to pay for Brito's education on the conditions that Brito would provide regular updates on his progress and, in turn, offer other students the same help as soon he could afford it. Lemann also had Brito work for two weeks at Garantia before he started school.

Brito wrote a letter to Lemann every month while at Stanford and developed a closer relationship with the billionaire, who remains a large InBev shareholder and ranks No. 172 on Forbes' magazine's richest people list.

That association continued after Brito graduated from Stanford with an MBA in 1989. About the same time, Lemann and his partners at Garantia bought a struggling beer company, Brahma, which was Brazil's No. 2 beer at the time and losing market share.

Brito already had worked for two global companies. But it was the brief stay at Garantia that hooked him. "I respect all of the companies that I've worked for," he said. "But in the end, that culture really got me. I said, 'That's something I can identify with.' "

Brito's education didn't end at Stanford. While at Brahma, Brito spent time running the company's sales team and a couple of years as head of operations. By age 43, he was promoted to CEO of the brewer Companhia de Bebidas das Americas, otherwise known as AmBev.

The influence of Lemann and the other Garantia partners who bought into Brahma, including Marcel Telles and Carlos Alberto Sicupira, is still evident today in the company's culture and its appetite for mergers and acquisitions, analysts say.

"AmBev was rooted in M&A and brave M&A at that," said Mann. "They're very good at it. In fact, they're bloody brilliant."

One of the company's boldest deals, he said, was the 2002 purchase of a stake in Buenos Aires-based Quilmes Industrial at the height of Argentina's economic crisis. "It was anathema to many people, but they saw opportunity," Mann said.

In the same way, InBev is using the weak U.S. dollar to its advantage in the pursuit of Anheuser-Busch — a point that August Busch raised in his June 26 letter rejecting the original offer.

For his part, Brito touts the company's record of mergers and acquisitions and ability to integrate operations. However, he bristles at the notion that InBev is opportunistic and doesn't respect brewing tradition.

"We're not a hedge fund," he said. "We've been in brewing for longer than Anheuser-Busch. Interbrew has been in business since 1366; Brahma since 1888."

In the course of a 75-minute interview, Brito conveyed energy and drive. He's prone to evangelize on InBev's culture, while shying away from personal questions.

"I don't have hobbies. I have four kids, I'm married to the same woman, I'm very boring," Brito said.

Brito jogs, but just to stay fit. It's one of the few areas where he's not competitive. He's not a sports fan, but he frequently uses sports as a metaphor, whether it's ranking salespeople like football teams or comparing the company's best employees to most valuable players.

In a February speech at his alma mater, Stanford, Brito told MBA candidates that of 85,000 employees at InBev, only 250 "really make a difference." It was the kind of comment that earned Brito a reputation among his critics for putting profits over people.

"Look at the U.S.," he said. "You have MVPs, right? Nobody thinks it's politically incorrect to have an MVP (in sports). Why, in a company, is it politically incorrect?"

Brito is right at home working on a conference table in the 30th-floor offices of a public relations firm in midtown Manhattan with only a laptop and a cell phone. At InBev headquarters in Leuven, Belgium, Brito and his top lieutenants don't have plush corner offices. Like a Wall Street trading floor, they sit side-by side at a large table that "lubricates" interaction among them, he said.

For Brito, an open-collar shirt and loafers, not an expensive suit, are de rigueur. He wears a plastic watch, not a Rolex. On his right arm is a yellow Livestrong wristband.

The lack of formality is as much personal style as a by-product of InBev's no-frills way.

Brito eschews the kind of corporate perks that have become typical today. He and other executive board members fly business class only on flights over 6 hours; otherwise they go coach. There are no company cars, free beer or reserved parking spots.

Contrast that with Anheuser-Busch, which maintains a fleet of corporate jets, a barber shop and company cars for executives. Every employee gets two free cases of beer a month and free admission to A-B's theme parks.

Analysts say a culture clash is inevitable if InBev and Anheuser-Busch marry.

"I think you're going to hear a lot of groaning," said Tom Pirko, president of Bevmark, a California consulting and advisory firm. "These are guys (the Brazilians) who press really hard. If Carlos wins, he's going to come in swinging, and everybody better learn how to duck. Because that's what he does."

If the lack of perks is one aspect of InBev's culture, so is the importance the brewer places on ownership, which is designed to align the interests of employees and executives with those of shareholders.

Brito prefers that employees and managers receive shares of stock — not options — as part of their compensation, because they can go up and down depending on the company's success.

Another InBev hallmark is zero-based budgeting — a method where every expense must be approved every year, not just increases from the previous year.

Brito's reputation as a cost-cutter was affirmed during his brief tenure as InBev's head of North America. Within months of his arrival after the 2004 creation of InBev through the merger of Interbrew and AmBev, Brito shut Labatt Blue's Toronto brewery and fired 20 percent of its salaried work force.

"The one thing you cannot argue with is that he more or less doubled the bottom line (at Labatt) in five years," McClelland said "There was no question that there was an opportunity to cut some fat. It's hard to debate. If you're an employee at Labatt, you were not happy. If you were a shareholder, you were ecstatic."

Brito is aware of his reputation. He's even sheepish when asked about stories about cutting off cell phones of employees who run up big bills. Make no mistake however, meticulous attention to detail is part of the company's success.

"We like details. We think our business is a business of details," Brito said. "It's a volume business, so every cent matters. We don't sell airplanes … we don't sell jewelry."

Although Brito has committed to keeping all 12 Anheuser-Busch breweries open, analysts believe there will be sweeping cost cuts if InBev takes over.

His record of boosting revenue is less impressive, analysts say.

"There's no doubt that his expertise is cost cutting," said Andrew Holland, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort in London. "Any company will have fat that you can cut out. The danger is that in your enthusiasm to cut out fat, you cut out the flesh."

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