I spent a decade making other people's operations work before I built my own. Engineering, then operational consulting across Europe and the Gulf, then transformation at one of the region's largest groups. First Class is what happened when I pointed all of that at something of my own.
I grew up in the north of Portugal and studied mechanical engineering in Porto. Before any of it, as a teenager, a national mathematics olympiad medal and years of competitive swimming, the first signs of a mind that likes problems with a clean answer. Engineering teaches you to see systems, the inputs, the constraints, the points where things fail. I have used that lens on everything since.
For ten years I worked in operational consulting, at the Kaizen Institute and then at Four Principles, helping companies run leaner. I moved to AlixPartners for turnaround work, then to Al-Futtaim, where I ran strategy and transformation for a group operating dozens of businesses. I learned how large organisations actually move, and where they get stuck.
I started First Class in October 2020, in the same month my years at Four Principles ended, with a single apartment. I built it in parallel with those full-time roles for almost four years, through AlixPartners and Al-Futtaim, then left in 2024 to run it full time once it was clear what it could become. Today it manages more than 600 homes across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Ras Al Khaimah, holds the highest review score of any host in the Middle East on Airbnb, and has run without a single compliance fine. In 2025 I founded First Class Investments for clients who want this market's returns without operating in it, and in 2026 I joined the founding board of the Holiday Homes Business Group at Dubai Chambers.
First Class is not the whole record. Alongside and before it I started a string of ventures: several cloud-kitchen food brands, a medical centre, and a payments company among them. Some I exited, some I stepped back from to put my full attention behind the flagship. I treat that as capital discipline: knowing where to concentrate is part of knowing what to build. The full portfolio is here.
Five years of engineering, with a year at RWTH Aachen in Germany. The habit that stuck: see everything as a system with inputs, constraints, and failure points.
Operational excellence consulting. I spent these years inside other people's factories and operations, learning how work actually flows and where it breaks.
Lean transformation across the Gulf. Same discipline, bigger companies, a region I would later build in.
Started with a single apartment in the month I closed out at Four Principles. Built in parallel with full-time roles for almost four years before going all in.
Turnaround and performance work. How businesses behave under real pressure, and what it takes to fix them quickly.
Running strategy and transformation for a group operating dozens of businesses. I learned how large organisations move, and where they get stuck.
The investment arm, for clients who want this market's returns without operating in it themselves.
Founding board member of the Holiday Homes Business Group, helping shape the rules of the sector I work in.
The road runs alongside all of it. I have spent years visiting nearly every country on Earth, not for the count but for what it shows you, how business is done in different places, how people read risk and trust, how little of what works in one market transfers to the next. That perspective is in everything I build. See the map and the field notes.