May 2025

Joana is the co-founder and COO of Sensei. Founded in 2017, it is Europe’s leading technology scale-up in autonomous retail.
With its proprietary computer vision and artificial intelligence technology, Sensei was a pioneer in opening the first autonomous store in Europe in Lisbon in 2021. In 2025, together with SONAE MC, it inaugurated the world’s largest autonomous store, Continente Bom Dia in Leiria. Previously, it had opened the first autonomous supermarket in Latin America in Brazil with Grupo Muffato and, in Italy, the first autonomous stores with the Italian convenience retail brand CONAD.

Sensei operates autonomous points of sale in Portugal, France, Italy, and Brazil. It has a team of over 70 people and includes investors from the U.S., Germany, Spain, Latin America, and Portugal—some of whom are backed by major European retail players. The company raised around €21M in venture capital, closing its Series A funding round in 2024 with €15M.

During her academic journey, Joana worked and studied in Portugal, the USA, Italy, and Germany. She attended Instituto Superior Técnico, where she pursued doctoral studies (DFA) under the MIT Portugal program (a partnership between IST and MIT), and completed a postgraduate program in Management and Sustainability at Harvard University in the USA. Before founding Sensei, she was a founding partner of the software house META, and since 2019, she has been a member of the Executive Committee and Vice-President of the Portuguese Industrial Association (AIP-CCI).

She was awarded the Women Entrepreneurship Award by Católica Lisbon Business School/ Center for Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship in 2019, as well as the Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2021 (João Vasconcelos Award by Startup Lisboa).

Writer, commentator, consultant, and Director of the NewsMuseum.

He became known as one of the founders of the blog 31 da Armada. As a communication consultant, in 2008 he founded the agency NextPower, which he led until 2019.

In 2016, he was one of the coordinators of the NewsMuseum project (in Sintra), which was nominated for the European Museum of the Year Award. He continues to serve as its director.

He holds the position of President of the Strategic Council of the Portuguese Association of Shopping Centers – APCC.

He has published six books, with Pax English – A nossa tribo being the most recent, released in 2022.

Currently heads C-MORE Sustainability, a global technology company with a mission to translate sustainability into actionable business strategies. Additionally, conducting in-depth research on the “S” (social) dimension within the ESG framework and how it is integrated into private sector practices, with the aspiration of pursuing a Ph.D. in the field.

Grégoire Huillard is the current Director of Development and Investments at Klépierre Iberia, a position he has held since November 2023. In this role, he leads the strategy for growth and optimization of the company’s asset portfolio in Spain and Portugal.

A graduate in Business Administration from ESCP Europe Business School, Huillard has over 14 years of experience in the real estate sector. Much of his career has been developed at Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW), where he initially managed the group’s major assets in Paris.

In 2014, he relocated to Spain to join the URW team, where he led major projects like the expansion of the Garbera shopping center in San Sebastián, adding more than 20,000 m² of new retail space in 2023, and the extension of La Maquinista in Barcelona, a 92,000 m² urban regeneration project that blends retail, residential, and office spaces.

Since 2021, he held the position of Director of Investments and Divestments for URW in Spain. With his move to Klépierre Iberia, Huillard brings extensive real estate development expertise and a strategic vision that strengthens the company’s commitment to sustainable growth and the consolidation of a premium asset portfolio in the Iberian Peninsula.

Rui has a financial background and began his career in this area at companies such as Sonae Sierra and Carrefour. He joined Nhood in 2009 as Chief Financial Officer and, in recent years, has led Property and Asset teams.

Between 2014 and 2018, he led the company’s sales and acquisition processes, and in 2022 he was appointed Real Estate Director (North), becoming responsible for the management of both Property and Asset operations in Northern Portugal.

In May 2024, he took on a new role in the Capital Markets area and is currently Head of Capital Markets for the Iberian market.

Inês Drummond Borges is currently Board Member and Chief Transformation Officer of Sonae Sierra, a position she has held since July 2021. She has played a key role in the company’s commercial, cultural and digital digital transformation of the company, instrumental to the materialisation of a new cycle of under the strategy of diversifying the business in the property sector. property.

Before joining Sonae Sierra, she led the digital transformation of Worten, where she was where she held the position of Marketing Director for Portugal and Spain between 2015 and2021. She was responsible for repositioning the brand, consolidating it as a
omnichannel technology marketplace.

She worked at Vodafone for 15 years, where she held various roles in the areas of strategy, innovation strategy, innovation, marketing and customer value management. During this period, she was involved in structuring projects, including the convergence of the mobile-fixed telecoms sector and the creation and growth of the Yorn brand.

His professional career began at McKinsey & Company, where he worked as a as a Business Analyst, specialising in digital business. With a growth-oriented approach – to businesses, organisations and people – Inês is passionate about innovation, talent and transformation.She advocates leadership, valuing diversity and the positive impact of companies on society, impact of companies on society.

She has a degree in Economics from Universidade Nova de Lisboa and completed an Erasmus programme at the Université des Sciences Sociales de Toulouse. She is fluent in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish, she has a strong international outlook and a deep interest in
interest in economic development and social entrepreneurship.