João Couto, General Director of Microsoft Portugal accepted the invitation to join the Strategic Council of the BSAFE LAB.
João Couto graduated in Electrical and Computers Engineering and, later, completed and MBA at Católica University, with a marketing major.
He began his professional career at TLP (Lisbon and Porto Telephones), as product manager, and, right after that, he worked, for 5 years, at Portugal Telecom group, in sells & marketing department.
Prior to joining Vodafone Group, João Couto worked for 9 years at A. T. Kearney where, as Vice President, played a key role in the worldwide leadership in the areas of telecommunications, media and technology, conducting multiple projects across several countries in Europe, Latin America and Africa, in a diverse array of industries such as telecommunications, banking, retail and public administration.
Between 2008 and 2010, he worked at Vodafone Portugal, as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and as a administration council member, leading a team of 200 employees and, additionally, between 2009 and 2010, was the president of APRITEL, Portuguese Association for Telecommunications Carrier.
In 2011, he became the CFO of the "Group Commercial", in the United Kingdom. In this role, he was responsible for supporting the development of new offers for the consumer market, corporate and large multinationals, worldwide, cordinating a team of over 3000 employees, a revenue of 3 billion Euros and 1 billion Euros for investment. In addition, João Couto also served as Chairman and Director of several holdings in Vodafone group.
Since February 2013, as the general manager of Microsoft Portugal, commented: "For me, becoming the general manager of Microsoft is an irresistible challenge and a great reason to return to my homeland. To continue the excellent work that has been done in the recent years, in a particularly difficult context which I am aware of, to contribute to he development of new areas such as cloud computing, besides the solutions that it present to refine the management processes, these are strong reasons to make me embrace this new phase of my professional career". And adds "I am happy to return to Portugal and for the opportunity to be closer to our clients, partners and, as a result, to help the growth of this country. Furthermore, it is an honor to lead such a great affiliate like Microsoft Portugal, renowed, both internally and externally, by its innovative, distinctive and highly motivating character that brings the best out of its people.
