March 2025

José Manuel Durão Barroso served as President of the European Commission for two consecutive terms, from 2004 to 2009 and from 2009 to 2014. Prior to his tenure at the European Commission, he held various positions in the Government of Portugal over a period of twelve years, including the roles of Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. In the academic sphere, he has held distinguished appointments as a visiting professor at Georgetown University and Princeton University. Currently, he serves as a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Portugal and at the European University Institute’s School of Transnational Governance in Florence.

In addition to his academic engagements, he has held significant leadership roles in the private sector. He was Chairman of the Board of Goldman Sachs International from 2016 and currently serves as Chairman of International Advisors at Goldman Sachs. Furthermore, he is the Chairman of the Board of GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance. Notably, in 2012, he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the European Union, in recognition of its contributions to peace and reconciliation in Europe.

With over 25 years of experience in shopping centers, Partner Director of the Retail division at Hamilton, a strategic research consultancy, he is a keen observer of consumption trends and one of the leading analysts and specialists in the sector within the Iberian market.

For 20 years, he has been a member of the Technical Committee of Traders at AECC, where he is a regular contributor to various Forums and Congresses. A speaker in different settings across Europe and Latin America, he is also a regular collaborator with several specialized media outlets in marketing and retail, as well as with multiple Spanish universities (UCM, UB, UAH, UV…).

He is passionate about innovation, convinced that the evolution of any company lies in the development of the talent within its teams, and a strong advocate for the need to humanize brands to meet the demands of society and today’s consumer.

Carla Pinto is the Executive Director of APCC – Portuguese Council of Shopping Centers, a Board Member of the Fundação Crédito Agrícola and  member of the Advisory Board of GRACE – Empresas Responsáveis..

At an academic level, is an Invited Professor and Researcher at the Portuguese Catholic University.

Former Capital and Debt Manager at Banco Português de Fomento (a financial company which has the nature of a national promotion bank),  Board Advisor at PME Investimentos – Sociedade de Investimento S.A, Executive Vice President at Cooperativa António Sérgio para a Economia Social – CASES (the entity responsible for social economy policies in Portugal), Project Manager in the health area, both in the public and private sectors and consultant in several entities and projects.

Has also performed various functions in structuring, implementing, developing and managing public and private projects.

Cristina Moreira dos Santos is the Property Management & Leasing Executive Director at Sonae Sierra since 2021, as well as a member of the Sustainability Steering Committee. Previously, she was Managing Director of Property Management for Iberia, with responsibilities across Property Management and Leasing. Between 2012 and 2016 she held the same role for Portugal. Prior to that, Cristina was the Director of NorteShopping, after joining the company to be Deputy Director of GaiaShopping in 1995.

Currently Cristina Santos is also chairwoman of the Portuguese Council of Shopping Centers (APCC), an association with more than 180 associated companies.

Paulo Sarmento is Head of Transactional Services at Cushman & Wakefield Portugal

Paulo has 38 years work experience, of which 29 years in international Real Estate Investment, Development and Management. I have extensive knowledge in the areas of commercial real estate investment (all asset classes), mixed-use development, leasing, property management and asset management.

Has a seasoned cross-border manager, having worked in the set-up of real estate retail projects and companies in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Brazil and the UK.

Paulo has general management experience, having served as Country Manager for Italy and Brazil.

Her previous 8 years work experience were developed in marketing, sales and human resources, in the industries of business consultancy, car retailing and office furniture.

With over 20 years of experience in the real estate market, Fernando Ferreira has built a distinguished career. Previously, he held leadership positions at renowned companies in the sector, including JLL, where he spent seven years as Head of Capital Markets Portugal, and Cushman & Wakefield, where he began his career in the Valuations department before transitioning to the Investment department in 2007, shortly before the financial crisis.

A graduate in Business Management, Fernando also has experience in the banking sector, having served as Head of Strategic Real Estate Assets at BES, where he was responsible for managing strategic real estate assets.

Graduated in Civil Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST – UTL) and Post-Graduate in Real Estate Management and Valuation from Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão (ISEG – UTL). Marta Martins is the coordinator of the Retail area of Capital Markets at JLL. With over 15 years of experience in the sector, Marta began her career as a Consultant in Real Estate Valuations and later became a Senior Consultant in the Real Estate area of Financial Advisory Services. In 2016, she joined JLL as the coordinator of the Retail sector in the Valuations Department, transitioning in 2022 to the Capital Markets Department, where she worked in the office sector. Recently, in 2024, she assumed the role of coordinator of the Retail area.

Sofia Ferreira de Almeida brings extensive experience in asset management, with a solid track record in investment banking and key positions in the real estate market. She served as Capital Markets Director at CBRE and as Senior Asset Manager at Square AM in Portugal, where she advised foreign investors, such as Signal Capital, in asset acquisitions, repositioning, and disposals. Before joining the Nhood team, she founded her own asset management company, providing consultancy for various investors. She is currently the Head of Property & Asset Services and Head of Market for Nhood Iberia.

Grant Dudson is an award-winning experiential creative director with over 14 years experience, specializing in the ideation and delivery of powerful brand experiences, events, spatial design and immersive art. From driving Johnnie Walker’s Global experiential creative for Blue Label and Black Label to designing immersive art installations for brands like Tudor and Talisker among others, Grant is always pushing the boundaries of possibility within the experiential landscape. His work has spanned immersive art installations for brands like Ford to globally recognised press stunts like HP’s award-winning Bending The Rules Campaign to campaign creation for the likes of the Buzz Aldrin Share Space Foundation for the 50th anniversary of the moon-landing as well as huge scale projection-mapping projects like Ferrari’s projection mapping installation at Ferrari World Abu Dhabi.

PhD in Economics from the University of Illinois (USA).

He has held positions at the Federal University of Pernambuco (Brazil), the University of Illinois (USA), and the University of Cambridge (UK). His research focuses on the Real Estate Market and Structural Transformations.

Together with Professor Pedro Brinca, he co-leads the MacroNova research group. He is a member of the Economics for Policy Knowledge Center at Nova SBE, where he has collaborated with Professor João Duarte on several studies, including “The Future of Work in Portugal: The Imperative of Reskilling” (2019), “ReSkill Hub: Accelerating Professional Reskilling in Cascais” (2021), “Impact Assessment of Consumer Credit on the Portuguese Economy” (2019), “Economic Impact Assessment of the Beer Sector in Portugal” (2021), “Economic Impact Assessment of the Battery Value Chain” (2021), and “Impact Assessment of Structural Funds in Different Regions of Portugal” (2021).

He has also developed and contributed to several capacity-building projects with a strong focus on institutional development, such as the SRSS/SC2019/128 project for the Ministry of Finance (GPEARI), in collaboration with DG Reform.