How can two heads think, decide and lead as one? For the guests of this episode, the recipe is simple: “AND It is essential to reduce or even eliminate the ego theme. You have to enjoy giving others a stage”. Then, running a company on your own is a bit like marriages. It takes respect, maximum trust and finding points of unity and purpose. Developing people is one of them.
In a world where the speed of markets, the pressure on teams and the complexity of businesses increase every day, more and more companies are challenging the traditional model of “one leader at the top” and choosing another path: co-leadership. The model is demanding, it has risks and challenges, some tensions in between, but anyone who has tested it knows that sharing the top sometimes means multiplying impact.
Cátia Mateus, Vanda Jesus and António Maria Soares Franco, during the recording of the podcast “The CEO is the limit”
José Fonseca Fernandes
Vanda Jesus, co-leads Doutor Finances for 11 months. It is his first shared management experience, after a career spanning almost three decades in multinational companies in the technology and financial sector. It guarantees that “in co-leadership we are four eyes, four arms. We see blind spots more easily and better, and we can talk more closely to the market and people.” Furthermore, he emphasizes, the model “resolves the least interesting aspect of the CEO role, which is being alone in some decisions”.
António Maria Soares Franco, took the same path in 2020, at the José Maria da Fonseca winery, the family company with almost 200 years of history that he co-leads with his cousin. Managing by two, says the co-CEO, “implies a great level of respect between both, but without this being a barrier that prevents us from challenging each other”. The winery is run like a small store. “ANDI’m at the counter, talking to customers, while my cousin is looking at the back of the store to see if we have enough stock. Every now and then I look inside, to see what’s going on, and he looks out the window to see if everything is ok outside”, he summarizes.
Cátia Mateus podcast The CEO is the limit
The CEO is the limit is Expresso’s leadership and career podcast. Every week, journalist Cátia Mateus shows you who the Portuguese managers who marked the past, those who direct today and those who promise to shape the future are, how they started and what they did to reach the top. Inspiring stories, told in the first person, by those who dare to make things happen. Listen to other episodes: