Your career with the Salvador Caetano Group spans a lifetime. Would you like to share some of the more relevant moments in your career?

Many moments have left a strong impression, so I will focus mostly on those connected with Mr Salvador. I learned values from him, such as knowledge sharing, respect for the workforce, investing in the young, and he also imparted a valuable piece of advice, which is, don’t make decisions in a spirit of levity. We’ve always worked as a team. He impressed upon me that it is important to make it so that people enjoy showing up for work. Without passion you can’t achieve anything. Mr Salvador gave me a personal and a professional family. My track record in the group includes a number of people, brands and events, but I’d like to highlight my relationship with Toyota — from the head office in Japan to the large network of Portuguese dealerships. This great family has taught me a great deal and brought me many joys in all these years of closeness.

Academi@ Ser Caetano models success and demonstrates the group’s dedication to the personal and professional development of its employees. Having been established to conduct internal training, it soon opened up to the market and is now recognised as a centre of excellence for the sector. What makes it so special?

How has it contributed to the recruitment and retention of talent in the group? At our Academi@ Ser Caetano we work on two tracks: vocational training for young people, and training employees. Both rely on four pillars: Talento Pro (youth training); Talento Jovem (trainee programme); Talento Interno (training and development for employees) and Talento Senior (employee pool comprised of current and former employees).

These have allowed us to achieve results we can take real pride in. Stimulating passion for knowledge, maintaining the Ser Caetano values, and a culture of sharing are the principles that make this academy so special.

Adapted to modern challenges, our academy provides in-person, remote and hybrid education, which allows us to share our knowledge across national territories and our multiple companies all over the world. When you add it all up you create motivated, knowledgeable professionals who are young and can take on the challenges the world of work presents. Many of them choose to stay and work with us.

Your group is at the forefront of new trends in the auto sector, namely in mobility services. Could you discuss what you’re doing and what your future plans entail?

We’re committed to developing new mobility solutions and the time we’re living through has accelerated the creation of increasingly digital services, although we have also maintained our focus on closeness to our customers. Additionally, we lead the pack when it comes to electric vehicles in the sector. That has motivated us to retrain our teams. Nowadays you need new skills to meet current challenges and we’re working toward that, anticipating future demand. 

Toyota has this vision of offering a complete customer journey that includes insurance solutions. How important do you think it is to include specialty insurance sales through dealerships and how might that model evolve?

Customers have become more demanding and it’s up to us to dazzle them with excellent service, fully integrated service that improves their experience with the vehicle, from the moment they buy it, and throughout daily use. The sale of insurance through dealerships is just one example of how a vehicle sale transcends a simple car purchase and becomes a complete mobility service. Increasingly, our concern with customer comfort leads us to develop and diversify services and functionality to best address their needs and motivations under an integrated logic of mobility.

During the course of your career, you’ve faced several crises, like the one we’re living through now. How would you advise managing those crises and economic cycles?

Although the current moment has particular specifics, we may draw some lessons from previous crises. I would highlight two which I think are fundamental. The first one is, keep up with changes in consumer behaviour. This crisis, like so many others, led to the take-up of new attitudes, demands, and needs on their part. So, we should keep an eye on those changes to best address their yearnings. The second one is, invest in people. You overcome hurdles thanks to your people’s talent and engagement. So, maintaining employee motivation is essential. Of course, it takes resolve. With a bit of resolve you can power through adversity.

Your close connection with Japan has been recognised not only through your appointment as Honorary Consul in 2002 but also through your decoration, in 2015, with one of the highest honours granted by the Emperor of Japan to foreign citizens for contributions to the development of understanding and bonds of friendship between Japan and Portugal. What does Japan represent in your life?

To me, and to the group, Japan is synonymous with “strong bond.” Our relationship with the country goes back years and entails great closeness. I would say Japan represents learning and profound respect for people. These are the teachings we’ve gleaned from the country’s culture and applied to our day-to-day affairs. At Salvador Caetano we apply some Japanese practices in our work, especially Kaizen methodology, which rests on the principles of continuous improvement of processes and of worker engagement. Respect for people, I reiterate, is at the heart of everything, including Kaizen, so we cultivate it devoutly within our group as well.