Career
Portfolio manager
During my master’s degree, I developed a growing interest in finance and investing, which led me to study these subjects independently. I started investing my own savings in 2018 and have continued learning through both study and practical experience since then.
In 2022, as Electromatic’s free cash flow became consistently positive and continued to grow, I proposed creating a portfolio of financial assets and call this division “E-Finance”. The objective was to improve the return on excess cash and gradually develop an additional source of income for the company, with the longer-term possibility of expanding this activity if it proved successful.
We initially took a conservative approach, investing mainly in blue-chip companies and investment-grade bonds. At the time, some AA-rated bonds were offering yields of approximately 3.0% to 3.8%. Working directly with fixed-income instruments was particularly useful in broadening my understanding of portfolio construction, risk and valuation.
As market conditions changed and my own experience developed, the portfolio gradually evolved towards a more concentrated strategy with a long-term investment horizon.
The principle behind the strategy is relatively simple: I prefer to invest in companies only when I believe I understand their ability to generate cash over a long period of time and when the valuation provides sufficient margin for uncertainty. This also means trying to separate the underlying economics of a business from the short-term narrative surrounding its share price.
Since 2022, we have invested regularly using a dollar-cost averaging approach. The financial return has been satisfactory, as shown in the table below, but I also consider the knowledge and experience gained throughout the process an important part of the outcome.
The portfolio has since grown to a value equivalent to more than 15% of Electromatic’s estimated company valuation.
Although my professional path is taking me away from Electromatic’s day-to-day operations, I will continue managing the E-Finance portfolio. Over time, investing has become both an area of professional interest and something I genuinely enjoy studying and working on.
Track-record:
| Year | E-Finance | S&P500 | STOXX Europe 600 |
| 2020 [1] | +48,22% | +18,40% | -5,14% |
| 2021 [1] | +21,10% | +28,71% | +20,99% |
| 2022 | -16,83% | -18,11% | -11,74% |
| 2023 | +20,53% | +26,29% | +19,19% |
| 2024 | +19,90% | +25,02% | +8,28% |
| 2025 | +1,89% | +17,88% | +18,29% |
| 2026 |
[1] – Personal portfolio, before creating E-Finance
This has been my most significant and formative professional experience so far. During this period, I developed experience in:
- Strategic and business model management
- Project management
- Process optimization through digital solutions, including AI
- Operations management and optimization
- Continuous improvement
At Electromatic, I gained hands-on experience in operations and team management, which gradually evolved into broader business management responsibilities.
Because of the scope of the experience and the lessons I took from it, I think it is worth describing in more detail.
The opportunity
After my first two years at TechnipFMC, a few things about what I wanted professionally became clearer to me. I did not want just a job. I wanted to be in a position where I could have real responsibility and where my decisions could have a visible impact.
Responsibility can lead to good results or poor ones, but that was part of what interested me. I wanted to challenge my own ideas in an environment where they could be tested in practice and, ultimately, judged by the market-almost like a self-correcting system.
Electromatic is a technical services company founded by my parents in 2004. It operates in the automated doors and fire safety equipament. The company was financially successful, with an established client base and a solid reputation, but it lacked the business structure and scalability needed for further growth.
Over time, I came to see an opportunity in the competitive landscape. The market was mainly divided between two groups: a large number of small, relatively inefficient companies and two larger international players.
The opportunity was in the gap between them – building a professional and modernized company that could combine the structure and reliability of a larger organization with the proximity and flexibility of a smaller one.
My background in mechanical engineering, together with my growing interest in economics and business management, made me see this relatively small company as an opportunity to test ideas, take responsibility, and understand how a business develops from the inside.
The outcome
I joined Electromatic in 2020 as an internal consultant. My first responsibility was to understand the company’s existing situation – the “as-is” – define a target operating model – the “to-be” – and create a plan to move the company in that direction.
The table below summarizes some of the changes across different areas during my time at Electromatic. I led or participated directly in much of this development, together with people who joined the company along the way and made important contributions to these results.
| 2021 | 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Business model | Reactive, mainly based on individual requests from non-recurring customers | Maintenance contracts with recurring and more predictable revenue |
| Level of digitalization | Less than 20% digital | Fully digital |
| Technology | Excel | SmarticPro – internally developed web-based ERP with AI agents; DocuSign; Microsoft 365, including SharePoint, Copilot and Teams |
| Market segment | B2C (~65%) + B2B (~35%) | 100% B2B |
| PME Líder awards | 1 | 5 |
| PME Excelência awards | 0 | 2 |
| Number of employees | 12 | 26 |
| Employees with higher education degrees | 0 | 5 |
| Revenue | 1,1M€ | 1,9M€ |
Throughout this process, I often took on specific operational roles before recruiting someone to take them over. This allowed me to understand the technical, logistical and technological requirements of each function before building the processes and tools around it.
It also gave me direct exposure to what customers valued most and helped us adapt the business model to a gap we identified in the market.
I started by working directly in logistics. Later, when the maintenance department was created, I became the first contract manager. Once the procedures and technological infrastructure were established, a team of contract managers were hired and I moved into the role of Maintenance Department Manager, a position I held for 2 years before assuming a full-time role as a business analyst and strategic lead.
This development took several years and was supported by two main principles: an inclusive leadership culture and technology developed internally at Electromatic.
The inclusive leadership approach was intended to preserve the company’s culture as the team grew and to create consistency across different levels of management. This was also one of the most difficult parts of the process, and I would not consider the outcome fully successful.
I believe we were able to create a more inclusive working environment, but we did not maintain the same level of productivity per employee. Although the approach contributed positively to the working environment, it also affected operating margins.
Technology, on the other hand, was a central part of the company’s development from the beginning. Over time, it became an increasingly important competitive advantage.
Our industrial clients were looking for smaller, efficient suppliers with a strong digital infrastructure that could integrate more easily with their own processes and systems. That matched the type of company we were trying to build.
The company became fully digital within the first 18 months. Today, Electromatic uses an internally developed platform with AI-based tools to manage clients, operations and contracts, as well as integrations with external systems used by customers and suppliers.
This technological infrastructure has improved operational efficiency and has become an important differentiating factor for Electromatic in the Portuguese market. The focus on technology has also helped position the company as a more modern and technically capable provider within its sector.
What’s next?
Electromatic’s business model is now well defined, and the technological platform is being managed by our CTO, who has a stronger technical background in this area and took over this responsibility from me in January 2026. I believe this is the right structure for the next stage of the company’s technological development.
After six years of close involvement, I decided to step away from day-to-day management and continue supporting the company from the outside while refocusing my career.
As the business model became more stable, the Operations Manager role increasingly required someone focused on daily technical execution and operational support. My main interest is in business development, transformation and building new systems rather than managing mature operations on a daily basis.
For that reason, in June 2026 I promoted a successor to the Operations Manager position. I will continue supporting the transition until January 2027, when I expect to leave the operational role completely.
The family dimension also influenced this decision. Working closely with family in an operating business can create additional pressure around management and strategic decisions. At the same time, my wife’s medical career has created opportunities for us to live and work abroad, while my contribution to Electromatic has become more limited in a fully remote setting.
At this stage, I place greater value on being present with my family and having the flexibility to support these opportunities.
From 2027 onwards, I expect to support Electromatic externally, mainly on strategic decisions and portfolio management.
This transition will also allow me to move into other areas where I can continue learning, take on different types of challenges, and develop new skills.
If you’re interested in some of the projects I was involved in, you can find them in the Projects section.
Subsea Flexible Pipes and Equipment Engineer - Life Extension Projects
- Engineering analysis: Executed detailed technical assessments to extend the service life of subsea flexible pipes and critical subsea equipment for global energy clients.
- Data Evaluation: Analyzed real-world operational data – including operating pressures, thermal gradients, and fluid compositions – to deliver precision life-extension modeling in a demanding industrial environment.
