Tribute to José Santos

Eight years after I started working at Sonae, I had done almost everything that could be done at the retail business. From a junior investment analyst, to CEO of a start-up, from opening the first Portuguese hypermarket without the Promodès team, to staff McKinsey, hired to audit the strategy of every Sonae business – suffering from to much diversification – I had done it all.

I was no longer a trainee, all those eight intensive years had turned me into a seasoned but still young manager.

The pre-historic period when Belmiro worked closely with his people on the field, had passed by.

Now, he was at the centre of the holding, surrounded by good people but also by courtesans that filtered and manipulated information as much as they could trying to out-maneuver him, though it was no easy task.

On those days, one could go from heaven to hell – and be back – without really understanding why.

I had been tempted many times to leave Sonae, but something got me emotionally engaged with the company, and I couldn’t do it. Belmiro was a magnetic person and Sonae had a very high profile on the business landscape. Where others were conservative, Sonae was bold. Where others were looking at the past, Belmiro was always looking ahead.

I must confess, I was getting more and more excited about the idea of trying something new elsewhere. Head-hunters invitations were common, offering alternatives those days, and I was getting more and more convinced that Sonae was a good place to grow up, but not necessarily a good place to grow old. But leaving was no easy decision.

I don’t remember exactly when I came across to meet José Santos again, my teacher of management at University.

His lectures were amazing, he had a natural talent to turn any complex concept into crystal clear. He didn’t recognize me immediately as his former student. I had to tell him some episodes like: “…you marked me with a 19 out of 20, your highest mark at the University, remember?” With a poker face he replied: “…I’ve never marked any student 19 out of 20 …”! And I replied: Yes, you have! You were considering to mark me 18 out of 20, but I presented you my investment analysis project with a Monte-Carlo simulation, and you gave me an extra point for that… “.

His face illuminated with a big smile: “…Hey, I remember you! You are the one who made an investment analysis with a Monte Carlo simulation. I guess I lost the code… Do you still have it?

I wasn’t sure if I still had that algorithm and the piece of the Basic code I had written eight years before. I replied him: “I’m not sure, but I still remember how I’ve done it, so if you want, I can do it again for you…”

He became silent for a couple of seconds, but then he broke it, with something I could not expect at all:

“… I’m looking for an assistant for my Catolica University courses. How would you like to do it for me? “

I felt the ground trembling below my feet. Not only I’ve dreamed of becoming a teacher – my father and my sister were both teachers – I was receiving that invitation from the teacher I loved the most. It was Jose Santos lectures and teaching style that made my mind clear to become a manager and not a chemical engineer.

My answer was an immediate yes!

I was expected to teach only 6 hours per week, that I was getting into the track I wanted, in order to conciliate management and teaching.

But when I asked Belmiro’s permission to be José Santos’s assistant, I received a huge “no way” as an answer. I still don’t understand why he did it, but he did it !

Of course I couldn’t live with the 6 hours per week income, so I had to reject José Santos’s offer.

But when I told José Santos about Belmiro’s answer, he immediately addressed me another invitation: Do you want to work with me at Segafredo Zanetti ?

At that moment, I made the decision to leave Sonae and start working at two different places: as a teacher at Catolica and as a manager at Segafredo Zanetti.

That decision that changed my life forever, I still praise it as the best I ever took.

Being José Santos assistant, I got the academic background on Marketing and Management I was lacking despite my precocious and intense real-life experience at Sonae. And I got it from the best master. I was also learning how to teach.

I left Segafredo Zanetti some years later, to pursue an international career at Dia International. José Santos fully supported that decision and although we don’t meet frequently by now, my dearest professor José Santos is still on my heart and mind.

A lot of his lessons still belong to my golden rules as of today!

One in particular, he used when analyzing any problem was his criteria of relevance and the capacity to discern between arguments: “That is irrelevant, forget it! “ .

It clears your mind and we should use it more often. We discuss irrelevant things, too much!

(This is my humble tribute to José Santos, an outstanding personality, no matter the perspective. He is brilliant as an academic and as a thinker. He was brilliant as a manager and as a teacher. He was the best teacher I’ve ever had).

Final note : when he was teaching at the University, we used to call him “Engenheiro Zé Fernando”. He then started to use the professional name José Santos. I must confess I still struggle as of today – with most respect and affection – not to call him by his nick name.