″I joined the team to help″ CI&T to grow in Portugal and Southern Europe
The director general of CI&T for Southern Europe, Miguel Fraquilho, says, in an interview with Lusa, that he joined the technology to help it grow in Portugal, in the first phase, and then in southern Europe.
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The former president of the Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade of Portugal (AICEP) and formerpresident of TAP functions of director-general (Managing Director) for Southern Europe by CI&T, a technology consultancy specializing in digital transformation and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, earlier this year.
“I joined the team with the mission of helping the company to grow in Portugal, in a first phase, and then in Southern Europe”, says Miguel Frasquilho, highlighting that the objective is to make Europe “another successful continent for CI&T as it is” as South America, North America and Asia-Pacific regions.
This was “the challenge that was thrown to me by the founders of CI&T, I found it a very interesting challenge, very attractive and it is the challenge that I am very focused and committed today”, said the manager.
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Miguel Frasquilho says that, in accepting the invitation to preside over ICEP, in 2014, Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, this was already based on “an option” he had made to approach the business world, management, and leave party, parliamentary politics more active.
“This structural option”, which is followed by an invitation from the current first, António Costa, to be the ‘chairman’ (Board of Directors) of TAP, or who fits his option.
“However, even before the pandemic started, in 2020, through one of CI&T’s reference shareholders who met me (..) he took an approach for me as a non-executive at CI&T”, he says, adding that he went to the technology headquarters in Campinas, Brazil.
“I went, met one, liked it and became a non-executive at CI& months later. There was Europe, one of the hubs in Portugal”, and there is another hub in the United Kingdom, he will continue.
“When I forced TAP in June 2021, I started to know about strengthening professional relationships, I would already talk to CI&T, I already knew my relationship with them from a non-executive perspective, I also knew an area of digital transformation in which CI&T operates and is a specialist” and “formally started functions in early 2022”, he reports.
Frasquilho points out that, given the recent presence of technology in Portugal, “there is a lack of knowledge of what CI&T is” in the country, which is not the case in Brazil or the United States.
“In terms of revenue, the United States is today as important to CI&T as Brazil, it has a name made, but it doesn’t have it in Europe”, he says.
In addition to Miguel Frasquilho, CI&T also has Miguel Malaquias as ‘country manager’ of Portugal.
“There is a clear bet here on people who are local, who have knowledge of the particularities of the regions where we want to operate”, which also includes several resources from other origins and who “are in the growth unit to which we belong”, he stresses.
On the balance so far, Frasquilho points out that CI&T still lacks brand recognition [notoriedade da marca] in the Portuguese market, but “already has customers in Portugal”.
The person in charge did not advance the number of customers, or who they are.
“We have a perspective of having even more customers and then continue to grow in the coming years”, he says.
The technology has two poles in Europe, one in the United Kingdom and another in Portugal.
In the Portuguese market this pole is a delivery centerone of the four owned by the technological company CI&T (two in Brazil and another in China).
“This shows that Portugal is also an attractive country for foreign companies that want to be established, positioned” in the country, he said.
The first CI&T worker was hired in September 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, so his presence in the Portuguese market is less than two years old.
“We already have 50 people in Portugal, most of them are in the northern region, in the Algarve and in the centre, this allows several regions to have human resources close to human resources”, underlines Frasquilho.
According to the manager, the hybrid work model “has come clear to stay”.
Asked if he wants to hire people in the Portuguese market, Miguel Frasquilho says yes.
We are always growing and we will certainly continue to grow at a good pace because Portugal was like delivery centerbut “I won’t give you a number”, he says, assuring: “to keep the very strong rhythm of hiring and talk about employees who are technologically reserved”.
On admitting to doubling the number of people, the director general of CI&T for Southern Europe says he does not have “a time horizon for this”, reiterating the objective of hiring at “a strong pace”.
The investment made by CI&T, a company with 27 years of activity in the Portuguese market, also did not help.
In global terms, CI&T registered a revenue growth of around 30% in terms of annual average until 2019. “In 2020 it was already over 40%, in 2021 it was over 50%, and in the first quarter of this year revenue growth was 66%”, in homologous terms.
The crisis in the technological war, but “an opportunity, a possibility, an uncertainty, which is lacking in a context of crisis in the pandemic crisis, a crisis with great security, at the height of the crisis, the time is to say with certainty what will happen “, he underlines.
“We have to be prepared, we have to be very attentive, but we also think that opportunities may arise”, considers
One of the areas that CI&T gives importance is sustainability, inclusion, diversity (ESG).
“It was an area created in 2009, 13 years ago, and we have many ambitious goals. For example, we have goals in 2019, our reality about and inclusion covered 30% of CI&T workers. people with disabilities, black people, from the LGBTQIA+ community, we are talking about underrepresented groups”, he explains.
That number in 2020 “was 35%, in 2021 it was 40% and we aim to reach 55% in 2025. It’s an area that CI&T pays almost the same attention to the results that were announced. CI&T had over its 27 years, we are already a listed company in New York, the IPO [entrada em bolsa] took place in November last year, with free float relatively small, about 12% for now, but valued the company at about 2 billion dollars”.
These 2025 targets are also to be applied to Portugal.
“The idea is that all the geographies where CI&T is located, we are in nine countries globally, basically replicate the goals that CI&T has. it’s not even years old yet, but we are committed to this guaranteed goal, in two years for sure, considered.
Regarding the business areas in which they operate, the person in charge said that the company “is transversal”, which includes the financial, insurance, health, food and beverage, manufacturing, education, among others.
Asked about what he hopes to have inside one, Miguel Frasquilho says: “We hope to have a consolidated position in Portugal, we hope to be in other markets in southern Europe in a year and that obviously the same thing will happen in northern Europe because the Europe is the second largest digital market in the world”.