Geraldo José da Câmara Ferreira de Melo (12 July 1935 – 6 March 2022) was a Brazilian businessman, politician and journalist. Geraldo worked as journalist until 1959, the year he graduated in Economic Development at United Nations' CEPAL. He was a founding member of Sudene, where he was appointed as Head of the Basic Economic Activities department under the leadership of Celso Furtado. In 1961 he obtained a degree in Economic Development Financing from CEMLA, in Mexico City, where he interned at the World Bank and the Inter-American Bank of Development. Later that year, Melo returned to Rio Grande do Norte to become the State's first Development Secretary during Aluizio Alves' government.