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My childhood
I remember being the most curious kid, an annoyingly curious one. WHY and HOW were my favourite words. Observing maps was my favourite pastime; nothing excited me more than learning about countries and their capitals.
My first life lesson
Losing my father suddenly at the age of 14 taught me that life is unpredictable; I realized how fragile we are; the importance of pursuing passion and realizing dreams. A year later, I was already chasing my dreams and pursuing my passion.
My first achievement
I passionately began practicing Inline Skating at the age of 15 and later became the National champion in Portugal and attended the World Championship in Switzerland. This made me realize I wasn’t just curious but ambitious too.
My first travel
I took my first road trip from Portugal to England by truck, and I can still remember how mesmerized I was looking out of the window and seeing new places. That desire to travel continued, and at the age of 18, I started exploring Europe with a backpack for periods of 1 month, going from country to country without plans, simply looking for adventure. It was also the birth of a big dream to travel worldwide for a more extended period. Travel allowed me to discover my professional vocation – working with people.
My first job
I got my first job as Sales Executive at Danone, a multinational firm. Traveling within the country, visiting new stores, and meeting customers excited me and energized me.
In Brazil, I lead the turnaround of the dysfunctional business. I transformed a deficient network of Distributors into a high-performing group, achieving a growth of 50% in only three years. This successful turnaround was part of a business case study later presented by our CEO to the Students of Harvard Business School. It also became the global best practice in Danone and continues to be implemented in many countries to date.
I joined their Global Sales Team in Paris, where I successfully managed three key international accounts, Sodexo, Aramark, and Elior. I spearheaded core projects in key countries, such as the USA, Spain, and France, with increased revenue of 15%, from €27.9m to €32.1m in three years.
Later I took over a failing business division in India and achieved another unbelievable turnaround. I turned it from an inefficient, unprofitable organization with people issues into a super-engaged and motivated team. They were even starting to meet their targets month after month and improving the productivity curve.
Also, in India, as Sales Director, I led the integration of two different company divisions, merging them into a large team of 600 people. I defined all the sales processes, built the Route to Market, expanded additional 4000 stores, and achieved an average growth of 15%.
Presenting the yearly plans for an audience of 1000 people and having 180 of my teams standing up and applauding gives me goosebumps to date and is one of the most treasured moments of my professional journey.
In Waterwipes Singapore, I led the business’s expansion in Asia, took the company from $1.9M to $4.7M in just 24 months, and expanded to India, Nepal, the Philippines, and Srilanka.
While I was fortunate to enjoy professional success, there was a desire growing inside of me to pave more purposeful path and create more impact in the world. I knew there was room to do much more. I needed to pause, introspect, and make plans to move forward. Thus, I took a break from the corporate world. I began to travel.
Travel
In 2009, after a successful professional stint in Brazil, I quit a well-paid job that I loved to embark on an epic journey to travel around the world without plans for 15 months. I visited 14 countries, crossing South America, the pacific islands, Oceania, Africa, and India.
It was a journey of personal superation, going through the most incredible adventures, such as climbing to the top of a 6088m mountain. Despite not being fully prepared and going through many physical challenges, such as my legs stopping moving, I still reached the top with the power of my mind. I learned an important life lesson – one can scale mountains with the power of the mind.
Much against the advice of many locals, I decided to visit a remote Tribe in Amazonia (Brazil) that had minimal contact with the outside world. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my travel, and I learned another important life lesson – your intuition knows what to do. Learn to trust it.
My desire to create a better world took me to Mozambique, where I developed a Social Project for homeless kids to improve their communication and confidence through photography. I was able to find homes for over 30% of the kids.
These homeless children, who had faced the most horrible atrocities in life, taught me to don’t be limited by my circumstances.
Many years later, I took an incredible trip across South East Asia by motorbike, hitchhiking, and bicycle. My most significant learning on that trip was that the joy is in the journey and not the destination.
The journey within
Along the way, I spent 13 years obsessed with my personal development. So I went on an inward journey to develop a better understanding. I read books, meditated, did numerous courses, and interacted with various spiritual gurus to understand more about human potential. My most significant learnings were in Rishikesh in India and Bali – I came to understand how to harness human potential not just in myself but also in people at large.
I was ready to share my expertise and create an impact at a higher level by capitalizing on the power of human potential to build high-performance teams for companies across the world.
The problem
The work environment has changed dramatically in the last few years – people working from home, people re-evaluating their priorities, and many struggling to cope with digital disruption. This has led to millions of people quitting their jobs. SME Owners are lost trying to figure out how to lead teams in the new world.
There is a paradigm shift. In this disruption, the leaders who will not adjust will not thrive and will not survive.
From recent conversations with many leaders worldwide, three major challenges emerged by the dramatic change in the work environment, accelerated by Covid19.
The new work environment has created a disconnect between employers and employees. The impact of COVID 19 further aggravates this. Employers are unable to understand the new expectations and how to match them. Hence, they are unable to keep their teams engaged.
Due to multiple tools and old processes, they are having difficulty creating efficient ways for the teams to get things done.
They are struggling to prepare their leaders to manage their teams effectively.
MY VISION
A world where every person is a leader
MY MISSION
To empower leaders to create environments where every employee can explore their full potential and perform at their best.
MY BELIEFS
Teams can achieve impossible things when working together.
People perform at their best when they love their work.
We grow businesses by growing people.
What if you could build a model where people self-lead themselves, and you can achieve more results?What if we build a model where employees come to work excited?
What if we build a model where we can achieve higher results?
I have a Podcast to bring awareness about this massive issue and new solutions. I will have unscripted, raw, and deep conversations with leaders and experts to go deeper on this topic.
Join the conversation!
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