Find out who the 50 most influential women in Portugal are and what they do. These women are role models in a changing world, but one that needs to change (even) faster. If women's parity in top management is not accelerated, it will not be achieved by 2053, according to the Grant Thornton Women in Business 2024 study. 1 - Cláudia Azevedo, 55, CEO of Sonae SGPS and chairman of Sonae MC and Sonae Sierra, and director of Sonae Indústria, Sonae Capital, Nos, Público and the family holding company Efanor. "2024 was a memorable year for Sonae," said Cláudia Azevedo, in a year in which the group she leads recorded a rise in sales of 18%, to reach 9.9 billion euros in turnover. This growth, according to the company, was made possible by the "robust performance of our main businesses, as well as strategic moves in the portfolio, namely the acquisitions of Musti and Druni". Through Efanor, the Azevedo family (Maria Margarida and her children Nuno, Paulo and Cláudia) controls 53,01% of Sonae, which owns 100% of Sonae Capital and 50% of Sonae Arauco. This year, at the presentation of the Sonae Group's accounts, Cláudia Azevedo decided to advise politicians and considered that the elections were a "wasted time", and that "politicians have to focus on the people and govern for the people and guarantee stability". "We have very important challenges in Portugal, such as reforming justice, health and education, and I don't think this year has contributed to that," she said. With a degree in Business Management from Universidade Católica and an MBA from INSEAD, she has been with the Sonae group since 1992. 2 - Joana Vasconcelos, 53, artist. Felipe VI of Spain was given a guided tour by Joana Vasconcelos of her exhibition at the Liria Palace in Madrid, which was attended by the Duke of Alba himself, Carlos Fitz-James Stuart, owner of the palace that is hosting Flamboyant, as the 50-piece exhibition by the Portuguese artist is called, which is on show until July 31st. This is the first time that the Palácio de Liria has hosted a contemporary art exhibition, which opens up many rooms to the public that have never been visited before, especially since the property is still inhabited. "My mother was a decorator at the Ricardo Espírito Santo Foundation, my father was a photographer and my grandmother was a painter. All this created a kind of continuity in which, when I started doing these things, nobody thought it was weird, strange or dangerous," explained Joana Vasconcelos in an interview with Público. 3 - Maria João Pires, 80, pianist. In September 2024, she was awarded the Praemium Imperiale in the field of music, an international prize awarded by the Japan Art Association. The Praemium Imperiale annually recognizes the international contribution of five personalities in the arts and culture and, in the 35th edition, one of the artists awarded is the Portuguese pianist. In her personal journey, Maria João Pires has lived in several countries: Germany, Brazil and Switzerland, until she decided to return to Portugal. In 2019, she was awarded the Medal of Cultural Merit and the Grand Cross of the Order of the Infante. On March 2, 2025, she appeared in the cycle Grandes Intérpretes (Great Interpreters), organized in the Symphonic Hall of the National Music Auditorium. She has performed on stages all over the world as a soloist and accompanied by the most important orchestras, such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris and the Wiener Philharmoniker. 4. Paula Amorim, 54, CEO of Galp Energia and Amorim Luxury. Daughter of Américo Amorim (1934-2017), she put down the roots of her Amorim Luxury with the acquisition in 2005 of the Fashion Clinic and, shortly afterwards, of the Gucci stores, which from 2012 onwards was joined by Miguel Guedes de Sousa, her husband, who launched the luxury restaurants and hotels under the JNcQUOI brand. Since last year, her focus has also been on Madrid, with the opening of a "pop-up" in El Corte Inglés in Rua Serrano, with Paula's fashion and decoration, and she was on the cover of Hola Living with photos taken at Herdade do Peral, which her father bought from Jorge de Mello in 1989. At Galp Energia there has been a rotation of CEOs with Andy Brown, who lasted around two years, and then Filipe Silva for two years. Also in fashion, Ricardo Preto, the man responsible for the artistic and creative side of the stores and clothing collections, left. On the positive side, he is about to open the JNcQUOI House, the first hotel in the heart of Avenida da Liberdade, which burnt down about a year ago, and he is also due to open his luxury villa complex in Comporta. The Américo Amorim Group is currently owned by Maria Fernanda Amorim and her daughters Marta Amorim Barroca de Oliveira, who heads the group's holding company, Amorim Holding II, Paula Amorim, who chairs Galp Energia, and Luísa Amorim, who heads Quinta Nova in the Douro and is a director at Corticeira Amorim. 5-Cristina Ferreira, 46, presenter, executive director of Media Capital Digital and director of entertainment and fiction. In 2023, she returned to morning shows on TVI, where she had returned in July 2020, after breaking with SIC, which asked for compensation of 20 million euros for breach of contract. In November 2024, the West Lisbon District Court decided to seize the assets of the company Amor Ponto, owned by the presenter and her father, after the Sintra Court sentenced them to pay more than 3.5 million euros to SIC in June of the same year. But in December 2024, Cristina Ferreira reached an agreement with SIC and the legal war ended. That month saw the publication of the last issue of Cristina magazine, which was launched in March 2015, with the first issue selling 100,000 copies. The TVI presenter is committed to promoting the e-commerce platform eusougira, where she has the podcast "Mulheres com tomates". She has a degree in History and was a secondary school teacher for two years. She also studied Communication Sciences and presentation at the now defunct Universidade Independente. 6. Mariza, 51, singer. At the shows celebrating 25 years of her career at the Meo Arena in November and the Super Bock Arena in Porto on December 13 and 14. Mariza also presented the new single "Casa", which is part of the singer's next album, "Amor", to be released this year. She made her debut with the album "Fado em mim", in 2001, and soon after became one of the most acclaimed stars on the world music circuit, having released seven more albums and performed on the most emblematic stages around the world. In recent months, she has been on tour in North America and China, but also in Paris with two concerts at the Théâtre du Châtelet, one of Europe's most prestigious venues, which were so successful that she will return on January 24, 2026, on an ongoing world tour. She also launched her perfume brand MZ by Mariza, with an exclusive, limited and numbered collection of three fragrances. 7 - Joana Marques, 38, comedian and scriptwriter. She is one of the presenters of the program As Três da Manhã, on Rádio Renascença, with Ana Galvão and Inês Lopes Gonçalves, and scriptwriter for Ricardo Araújo Pereira's program, "Isto é gozar com quem trabalha". The podcast Extremamente Desagradável was the most downloaded and listened to podcast in 2024, as it was in 2023. The play "Desconfia", which sold out several sessions in theaters across the country, became a milestone in the comedian's career, consolidating her as one of the most influential figures on the national comedy scene. She studied Communication Sciences at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of Universidade Nova de Lisboa. In 2007, she began working as a scriptwriter and, in 2012, she created and presented the program Altos e Baixos, on Canal Q, the cable channel of Produções Fictícias, together with Daniel Leitão, her current husband, which ran for five seasons. The musical duo, Anjos, filed a lawsuit for property damage worth one million euros over a joke made by Joana Marques on her Instagram. 8. Maria Manuel Mota, 53, director of the Gulbenkian Institute of Molecular Medicine. She has a degree in Biology and a PhD in Molecular Parasitology from University College London (UK) with work carried out at the National Institute for Medical Research and, between 1999 and 2001, she carried out post-doctoral research at the New York University Medical School Laboratory, where she taught. She returned to Portugal in 2002, worked at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência and, in 2005, became head of the Malaria Unit at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular (iMM). She later became iMM's executive director and took on the leadership of the merger between the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência and the Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes, which gave birth to the Instituto Gulbenkian de Medicina Molecular, which uses the English initials GIMM as its brand. It has 550 researchers of 40 nationalities and aims to become a world reference in the area of life sciences and biomedical sciences and wants to revolutionize the treatment of diseases such as cancer. The ambition is to make GIMM one of the ten largest biomedical and life sciences institutes in Europe, with an investment plan of 200 million euros over the next ten years. 9. Leonor Beleza, President of the Champalimaud Foundation and member of the Council of State. She has been president of the Champalimaud Foundation since 2004, chosen by the founder António Champalimaud, and over the last year has been touted as a potential candidate for the Presidency of the Republic in the 2025 presidential elections, but the founder of the PSD turned her down outright. She has a law degree from the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, where she was an assistant professor and was the second woman in Portugal to take on the role of minister, leading the Health portfolio in the Cavaco Silva governments (1985-1990), after having been Secretary of State for Social Security (1983-1985) and for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (1982-1983). She founded the PSD, was a member of parliament, vice-president of the Assembly of the Republic and a member of the Council of State. She was a founding member of the Commission on the Status of Women, now the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality. 10. Isabel Vaz, 59, CEO of Luz Saúde. She has a degree in Chemical Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico and an MBA from Universidade Nova de Lisboa. After graduating, she began her professional life as a researcher at the Institute of Experimental and Technological Biology (IBET). She was a manufacturing project engineer at the Atral Cipan Group. In 1992, she joined McKinsey, a top management strategy consulting firm, where she was a senior consultant for seven years. Since 1999, she has been Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Luz Saúde Group. Fidelidade came close to placing Luz Saúde on the stock exchange in April 2024, but market conditions did not allow the healthcare company to return to the stock exchange. The initial public offering (IPO) fell through, but it's not completely out of the plans. It will only happen, however, if it is not possible to find a strategic partner for the country's hospital manager. Luz Saúde has 14 hospitals, 15 clinics, a senior residence and a university hospital in partnership with the Catholic University. Isabel Vaz points out that innovation cycles are getting faster and faster, which requires high investments, which a larger scale facilitates. The manager admits that Luz Saúde could be part of a consolidation process with a large group in the sector, provided that competitive conditions could be guaranteed. "With the huge investment we all have to make in technology, namely in data and data processing, we needed to be bigger to be able to invest," she explains. 11. Clara Raposo, deputy governor of the Bank of Portugal. She has a degree in Economics from the Nova School of Business & Economics, a Masters in Economics from Queen Mary & Westfield College and a PhD in Finance from the London Business School. She spent most of her career in theoretical research and university teaching in the area of Finance at Nova SBE, where she took her first steps as an assistant professor. This was followed by a PhD at the London Business School, and then a professorship at Oxford University, where she taught at the Said Business School. She returned to Portugal, teaching as an assistant professor at ISCTE and then as a full professor at ISEG. She came to practical management when she became president of ISEG between 2018 and 2022, the year in which she was appointed deputy governor of Banco de Portugal. Before becoming deputy governor of the Bank of Portugal, she was chairwoman of Greenvolt, a non-executive director of Nos, a member of the board of IPCG - Instituto Português de Corporate Governance and was even appointed to the board of Millennium BCP. 12 - Rita Júdice, 51, Minister of Justice. She was elected to the Portuguese Parliament in 2024 for the constituency of Coimbra. She has been Minister of Justice since 2024, in the XXIV Constitutional Government, led by Luís Montenegro. A lawyer, she has a law degree from the Faculty of Law of the Portuguese Catholic University - Lisbon School (1997). From 2013 to 2023, she was a partner at the law firm PLMJ, of which her father, José Miguel Júdice, was one of the founders. At PLMJ, she was co-head of the Real Estate and Tourism practice. She has more than 25 years' experience as a lawyer in the area of real estate law. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Portugal and a member of Women in Real Estate (WIRE Portugal). 13 - Ana Paula Martins, 58, Minister of Health. She graduated in pharmaceutical sciences from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon in 1990 and received her doctorate in Clinical Pharmacy from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon in May 2005. Between 1989 and 1992, she was secretary general of the Portuguese Pharmaceutical Association. For more than 20 years, she was an assistant professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon, held the position of director of "External Affairs and Market Access" at MSD Portugal between 2006-2014 and also directed the Center for Pharmacoepidemiology Studies of the National Pharmacy Association between 1994 and 2006. Between 2016 and the beginning of 2022, she served as President of the Portuguese Pharmaceutical Association. Between December 2022 and January 2024, she was director of Santa Maria Hospital in Lisbon. From December 2021 until May 2022, she was vice-president of the PSD during Rui Rio's consulate. 14. Isabel Furtado, CEO of TMG Automotive and president of the Casa da Música Foundation. Isabel Furtado graduated in Economics from the University of Manchester, specializing in Textile Technology. In the hot summer of 1975, with the occupation of Têxtil Manuel Gonçalves, her mother, Maria Helena Gonçalves, went to Canada, settling there for three years. Isabel then studied in England. She joined the TMG group in 1985 and, in 2005, became director of TMG Automative. The company, headed by Isabel Furtado since October 2008, manufactures textiles and interior coverings for around 23 brands of cars, including the best known such as BMW, Mercedes, Porsche and Toyota. All of TMG Automotive's production is exported, mainly within Europe. He was chairman of the board of COTEC Portugal for four years, between 2018 and 2022. He is currently president of the Casa da Música Foundation in Porto. TMG Automotive has moved ahead with the construction of a factory in the USA, through a joint venture with The Haartz Corporation, with whom it has a partnership for a factory in China, in the port city of Ningbo. 15. Júlia Pinheiro, 62, television presenter. She graduated in Modern Languages and Literature and later completed a post-graduate course in Social Communication at the Portuguese Catholic University. In 1981, she joined RDP as a trainee, where she spent two years and did a program on RTP. In 1984, she moved to Rádio Renascença and, in 1992, helped found SIC. In 2002, when Emídio Rangel moved to RTP, she returned to Portuguese public television and, the following year, moved to TVI, where she became deputy director of programming. In 2011, she returned to SIC, where she held the positions of presenter and director and where she currently presents "Júlia" from Monday to Friday on SIC. In a recent reflection, Júlia Pinheiro said that the new generation of presenters has little culture and very basic communication, even classifying it as bad: "They don't have any culture, not even the simplest, they have few resources and the communication they do is very basic, it's aseptic and often technically very bad". 16. Ana Figueiredo, 50, President and CEO of Altice Portugal/MEO. "Leadership in itself is not a place of solitude, but difficult decisions are made in solitude," recalled Ana Figueiredo, who managed to overcome the reputational crisis that broke out in July 2023 with the police and judicial actions against Armando Pereira, one of the founders of the Altice group and former director in Portugal, and former directors of the company. chairwoman. She has been CEO of Altice Portugal and MEO since April 2022, which she combined with the position of chairwoman in July 2023. She has a degree in Management from Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão and an MBA from Universidade Católica and Nova Business School. She began her professional career in the audit department of Galp, followed by Ernst & Young, in the area of auditing and financial consultancy. She joined the PT group in 2003. In 2016, she was chosen as chief audit executive of the Altice group in Switzerland, overseeing operations in France, the United States, Israel, Portugal and the Dominican Republic. In this country, she became CEO between 2018 and 2022. 17. Isabel Capeloa Gil, 59, rector of the Catholic University. In September 2016, at the proposal of Bishop Manuel Clemente, then Patriarch of Lisbon, she became the second woman to be rector of the Portuguese Catholic University, and took office on October 28, 2016, succeeding Maria da Glória Garcia. In November 2024, she took office for her third term at the head of the Catholic University, which, in a statement, said that the rector "was responsible for the inauguration of the first private Faculty of Medicine in Portugal, and for the development of the project for the new Campus Veritati of UCP, truly transformative for the country, with construction starting in 2025". She is Pope Francis' advisor on education, a non-executive director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and chairs the board of trustees of the new public company, Museus e Monumentos de Portugal. She has a degree in Modern Languages and Literatures from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon and a master's degree in German Studies. She studied at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and at the University of Chicago, and received her doctorate in German Studies from the Faculty of Human Sciences of the Portuguese Catholic University in Lisbon. In 2005, she became director of the Faculty of Human Sciences and, between 2012 and 2016, vice-rector of the Portuguese Catholic University of Lisbon. 18. Lídia Jorge, 78, writer. Her novel "Misericórdia", published in France by Métailié, won her the prize for best foreign book, the Médicis prize (ex-aequo). It's the first time the award has gone to a Portuguese-speaking author. This award was like a literary rebirth for the author who published her first book in 1980, "The Day of the Prodigies". She also received the insignia of Commander of Arts and Letters, the highest distinction awarded by the French Ministry of Culture. In March and April of this year, Lídia Jorge was in Germany promoting the translation of "Misericórdia". She has a degree in Romance Philology and was a high school teacher in Lisbon, Angola and Mozambique - during the colonial war, an experience that was reflected in the 1988 book A Costa dos Murmúrios, one of her twelve novels. She is a State Counsellor appointed by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, was a guest professor at the Faculty of Letters in Lisbon and a member of the High Authority for the Media between 1990 and 1994. 19. Maria João Carioca, 53, Co-CEO of Galp Energia. At the beginning of January 2025, Maria João Carioca, who is Galp Energia's CFO, became the company's Co-CEO on an interim basis alongside João Diogo da Silva, after Filipe Silva resigned. "Maria João Carioca's professional seniority and solid financial acumen, combined with João Diogo Silva's experience and deep integration into our corporate culture and decades of service, create a balanced and powerful leadership. I am confident that this co-leadership will drive our company forward, while maintaining a well-defined strategy," wrote Paula Amorim, chairman of Galp Energia. Her resume as a manager includes many positions and occupations along a path that began in 1993 with McKinsey, where she spent ten years. In 2013, she joined the board of Caixa Geral de Depósitos as an executive. In 2016, she became the first woman to lead the Lisbon Stock Exchange as chairman of the Board of Directors of Euronext Lisboa, Interbolsa and Euronext Technologies, where she remained until 2017, when she returned as an executive director to Caixa Geral de Depósitos, where in 2021 she took on the role of CFO, but in 2023 she moved to Galp Energia. She has a degree in Economics from Nova SBE and an MBA from INSEAD. 20. Isabel Jonet, president of the Lisbon Food Bank Against Hunger, the Portuguese Federation of Food Banks Against Hunger and Entrajuda. With a degree in Economics from Universidade Católica Portuguesa, she joined Sociedade Portuguesa de Seguros in March 1983 and in 1986 went to Brussels to join Assurances Général de France for a year and a half, followed by the Economic and Social Committee of the European Communities until July 1993. She has led the Food Bank for 31 years and, in a recent interview, said that "our total success rate was when we could close the Food Bank, because there would be no people needing help". In 2004, she was one of the founders of Entrajuda, which aims to improve the management and organization of social solidarity institutions. She is a member of BPI's Social Responsibility Committee, the Strategic Council of Missão Continente and the Board of the Catholic University. 21. Daniela Braga, 45, CEO of Defined.ai. She graduated in Portuguese Studies and Modern Literature from the Faculty of Letters (FLUP), but got a scholarship at the Faculty of Engineering to research the intersection between linguistics and engineering, which would change her life. He went on to do a PhD in Linguistics and Engineering, a partnership between the universities of A Coruña, Minho and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. In 2006, she joined Microsoft, where she worked in the voice and text area, first in Portugal, then in the USA and China. In 2015, Daniela Braga left Microsoft and, after a short stint at VoiceBox, created DefinedCrowd, now Defined.ai, an intelligent data platform for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. She recently confessed that she was a strong advocate of developing a national artificial intelligence agency in Portugal. "I think we have the talent and conditions to develop basic technology." 22. Ana Moura, 45, singer. She sang in a cover band, "Sexto Sentido", which began recording a pop/rock album, but it was never published. After hearing her sing a fado in a bar, guitarist António Parreira took her to sing in fado houses and Ana Moura ended up charming Maria da Fé, the co-owner of the Senhor Vinho fado house, who invited her to sing at her house. In 2003, she recorded her debut album "Guarda-me a Vida na Mão", produced by Jorge Fernando, and in February 2005 she performed at Carnegie Hall in New York. She has sung with Prince, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, and Ana Moura's album "Desfado" was considered by the UK's Sunday Times to be the best world music album of 2013. In an interview with El País in November 2024, he said that these were "frightening times for those who want to be free". As the Spanish newspaper wrote, "the Portuguese singer, who modernized fado, challenged the conservative public's rejection of her new, more urban and sensual artistic direction". Ana Moura's transformation began in 2021, after the death of her brother in an accident, when she cut ties with her multinational record label, Universal Music, and embarked on a musical journey that goes beyond the boundaries of fado: "we are not just one thing, nor are we made of one material, nor are we just one thing all our lives". However, he adds that "being a fado singer is a condition for the rest of my life, whether I sing in English or in Greek. There is a fado soul inside me that is present in everything I do." 23 - Roberta Medina, 46, businesswoman and organizer of Rock in Rio. Born in Rio de Janeiro, she has a degree in Social Communication, is president of Dream Factory and vice-president of the company linked to Rock in Rio, Better World. Rock in Rio was created in 1985. In Portugal, 10 editions have been held to date and over the 44 days of the festival, more than 3 million people and more than 1100 musical attractions have passed through Lisbon. She is the daughter of Roberto Medina, the creator of Rock in Rio, and is responsible for staging Rock in Rio in Lisbon and Madrid. An economic impact study by Nova SBE on the last 2024 edition of the music festival, which took place in Lisbon in June, points to 11.8 million euros in tax revenue and the creation of the equivalent of 2,204 full-time jobs. Rock in Rio Lisboa, which brought together more than 300,000 people over four days in June last year in Parque Tejo, had an impact equivalent to 120 million euros on the national economy. 24 - Sandra Felgueiras, 48, TVI journalist In November 2021, she left RTP news, where she had worked since 2000 and coordinated the Sexta às 9 program since 2012, for Cofina, now Medialivre, to take over in January 2022 as director of Sábado magazine and present the Investigação Sábado program on CMTV. Eight months later, she left for TVI and filed a lawsuit against Cofina in the Labor Court, demanding 90,000 euros in compensation, which she lost at first instance. Sandra Felgueiras was born in Porto in March 1977. She studied Communication Sciences at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, worked in the newsrooms of Expresso and SIC and had previously worked for Spanish television - Barcelona Television. 25 - Maria da Graça Carvalho, 70, Minister for the Environment and Energy The importance of the energy transition and climate change has been challenged by a growing wave of criticism and protest, which calls into question many of Europe's carbon neutrality objectives. This context has challenged her management and government experience, which she enjoyed as Minister for Science and Higher Education between 2003 and 2005, as an advisor to Durão Barroso at the European Commission between 2006 and 2009, and as a Member of the European Parliament for the Social Democratic Party. She has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon and a PhD from the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in the UK. 26 - Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, 64, Minister of Labor, Solidarity and Social Security She is a full professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon. She has also been the scientific coordinator of various international projects in the areas of Labour Law and Equality Law, and has consulted for the European Commission, the European Parliament and the International Labor Organization. She graduated in Law from the Faculty of Law of the Portuguese Catholic University. She is married to António Ramalho, who was CEO of Novobanco, and is the older sister of writer Margarida Rebelo Pinto. 27 - Mariana Mortágua, 38, coordinator of the Left Bloc She has a degree and a master's in Economics from ISCTE and a PhD in Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. She has been a Left Bloc activist since 2007 and became an MP in 2013, having made a name for herself during the parliamentary inquiry into the collapse of BES. In May 2021, Francisco Louçã said during the Left Bloc's 12th Convention that "when Mariana [Mortágua] is Finance Minister, the State won't be a piggy bank to pay for adventures like Novo Banco". She is the daughter of Camilo Mortágua, a historic anti-Nazi activist, revolutionary, founding member and operative of LUAR, and twin sister of fellow Left Bloc leader and MP Joana Mortágua. 28 - Sandra Maximiano, 48, president of ANACOM She has been an associate professor of economics at the Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão (ISEG), in the area of public economics and welfare, since January 2018. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Amsterdam and will lead ANACOM from December 15, 2023. She has worked at universities such as the Faculty of Law, University of Coimbra, Purdue University, University of Chicago, University of San Diego, Nova School of Business and Economics, University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences, Portuguese Catholic University. 29 - Margarida Corrêa de Aguiar, 60, president of the Insurance and Pension Funds Supervisory Authority (ASF) With a degree in Business Management from Universidade Livre, she began her career as CEO of the Banco de Portugal Pension Fund Management Company, which she left to become Secretary of State for Social Security. She was then a director of the Energy Services Regulatory Authority, worked at Brisa as a non-executive director and was a consultant to the Board of Directors of the Bank of Portugal, until she was appointed to the ASF on June 17, 2019. She is also a member of the senior management body of the European insurance supervisor EIOPA. 30 - Manuela Vaz (Soares), president of Accenture Portugal and member of Accenture's Executive Committee in Iberia She is the first woman to chair Accenture in Portugal since October 2023, after having been vice president of the consultancy, with responsibility for the Retail, Consumer and Transportation industries, areas she has led since 2017, along with the Porto office. Her professional career began in 1994, when she joined Accenture as a consultant for the Retail, Consumer Goods and Energy industries. She took a break to devote herself to a personal project and returned in 2007. She has a degree in Systems Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Minho and is a member of the General Council of this educational institution. 31 - Beatriz Rubio, 59, CEO of Remax She has a degree in Economics and Business Management from the University of Saragoza and an MBA from IESE. She began her career in commercial management at LOréal in Spain in 1990. In 1993, she came to Portugal with her husband, Manuel Alvarez, and became head of the selective perfumes division at Parfum & Beauté. In 1998, she joined the Jerónimo Martins Group, where she became purchasing director of the Recheio banner. In 2000, the couple launched RE/MAX Portugal and, in 2009, Beatriz Rubio became CEO of the brand in Portugal, which is the leading real estate brokerage in our country. 32- Elizabeth Rothfield, 61, CEO and Chairman of Explorer Investments She began her career as a broker at Benito y Monjardín in Madrid. She then worked at Schroders in London, where she led the team responsible for the Spanish market. In 1994, he became a partner at Midas Investimentos, founded by Rodrigo Guimarães (1962-2021). In 2003, Rodrigo Guimarães and Elizabeth Rothfield set up Explorer Investments, today the leading independent private equity fund management company in Portugal. It currently manages and advises funds with net assets of around 1.7 billion euros, divided into two business areas: private equity and tourism. She has a degree in European History and Literature from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. 33. Elvira Fortunato, Professor at the Faculty of Science and Technology, UNL Universidade Nova de Lisboa is leading the China-European Union Joint Electronic Materials Laboratory, which will be set up in Hefei, the capital of Anhui province in eastern China, dedicated to flexible electronics, from biomedical applications to solar cells that can go into space, Elvira Fortunato's areas of choice. In March 2025, Bertand published her biography: Elvira Fortunato A life of passion for science, written by Virgílio Azevedo. Elvira Fortunato was Minister of Science and Higher Education from March 2023 to April 1, 2024. She has a degree in Physics and Materials Engineering and a PhD in Materials Engineering: Microelectronics and Optoelectronics from FCT/Universidade Nova de Lisboa. She is a full professor in the Materials Science department of the Faculty of Science and Technology of Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where she was vice-dean and coordinated the research area between 2017 and 2022. She was also director of the Associated Laboratory Institute of Nanomaterials, Nanofabrication and Nanomodelling. 34. Joana Carneiro, 48, conductor In February 2024, she was appointed a member of the Council of State by the President of the Republic Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, replacing António Damásio, who resigned. She graduated in Orchestral Conducting from the Academia Nacional Superior de Orquestra. She completed her Masters in Orchestral Conducting at Northwestern University and went on to study for a PhD at the University of Michigan. Joana Carneiro was Principal Conductor of the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra at the Teatro São Carlos in Lisbon from 2014 until January 2022 and, more recently, completed a four-year term as Principal Guest Conductor of the Real Filharmonía de Galicia. Among the highlights of the 2024/25 symphonic season are collaborations with the Naples Philharmonic, the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montreal, the NAC Ottawa, the New Zealand Symphony, the Macau Orchestra, the Bilbao Symphony and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. 35 - Leonor Freitas, 73, owner of Casa Ermelinda de Freitas She did a degree in Social Work and worked for the Ministry of Health in Setúbal for over 20 years, in the area of alcoholism prevention, drug addiction and health education. At the end of the 1990s, her father's death led her to take over the leadership of the family wine company, founded by Leonilde Assunção in 1920 and which Leonor Freitas later named Casa Ermelinda Freitas. In 2009, she was awarded the Order of Agricultural Merit by the then President of the Republic Cavaco Silva, and won the first edition of the BPI Woman Entrepreneur Award in 2018. Leonor Freitas is passing on her legacy to her children, João, who is in charge of IT, and Joana Freitas, who is increasingly in charge of Casa Ermelinda Freitas, and who has a degree in Management and postgraduate degrees in Oenology and Marketing, and who has always had a strong connection to the land and knew her grandmother Ermelinda Freitas and great-grandmother Germana. 36 - Clara de Sousa, 57, journalist and SIC presenter Presents the news program Jornal da Noite, broadcast by the Portuguese television station SIC. Apart from José Alberto Carvalho, Clara de Sousa is the only Portuguese journalist to have presented news on all three Portuguese generalist channels - RTP 1, SIC and TVI. She studied Modern Languages and Literature at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon. She was still a university student in 1986 when she started working as an announcer at Rádio Echo, later Rádio Clube da Parede, and Rádio Marginal. From 1992, when she obtained her professional license, she dedicated herself to journalism and, in 1993, Clara de Sousa was TVI's first news anchor. In 1996, she moved to RTP, where she presented Telejornal and remained until 2000, when she moved to SIC, where she remains. She has an Instagram account dedicated to cooking and DIY and has published several cookbooks, as well as the website claradesousa.pt. 37- Patrícia Mamona, 35, triple jumper for Sporting Clube de Portugal She was recently chosen to lead the Portuguese Mission to the World University Games in Rhine-Ruhr 2025, from July 16 to 27, 2025. In November 2023, Patrícia Mamona, a Sporting athlete who was Olympic runner-up in the triple jump at Tokyo 2020, returned to training after injury with her sights set on the Paris Olympics in 2024, but ended up missing out after undergoing knee surgery. She started athletics, specializing in the triple jump, at Juventude Operária de Monte Abraão (JOMA), between 2002 and 2010, breaking records, including youth records in the 100 metres hurdles and long jump. In 2008, he went to Clemson University, in South Carolina, to study Medical Sciences, and went on to compete on the American university circuit and in competitions in Portugal. At the end of 2010, he became a Sporting athlete and soon after returned to Portugal, where he combined athletics with a second degree in Biomedical Engineering. He has done advertising campaigns for CGD, Pingo Doce, Fitness Cereals, Multicare Vitality, Refix water brand, Bettery. 38 - Paula Franco, 54 years old. Member of the Board of Certified Accountants She has a degree in Business Management from the Autonomous University of Lisbon and a specialization in Taxation from ISCTE. She is a certified accountant, tax consultant and CEO of PPFranco and CEV Fiscalidade. She was an advisor to the two previous members of the Order of Certified Accountants, providing technical support in the field of taxation, accounting and social security. In March 2018, she was elected for a first four-year term as a member of the Order of Certified Accountants, and was re-elected and sworn in in December 2021 for a term until 2025. 39 - Maria Lúcia Amaral, 67, Ombudsman She is a jurist and full professor at the Faculty of Law of Universidade Nova de Lisboa and has dedicated her academic life to the study and teaching of Public Law, and in particular to the study and teaching of Constitutional Law. She was a member of the Constitutional Court for nine years, between April 2007 and July 2016, and its vice-president between October 2012 and July 2016. On December 2, 2021, she took office in Parliament as Ombudsman for a second term, which ends in 2025. She was first elected Ombudsman by the Assembly of the Republic on October 20, 2017, and took office on November 2 of the same year. 40 - Isabel Pires de Lima, 72, president of the Serralves Foundation A specialist in Eça de Queiroz, she is a professor emeritus at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Porto, specializing in Portuguese Literature. She has a degree in Romance Philology from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Porto and a PhD in Portuguese Literature from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Porto with her dissertation "Máscaras do Desengano - Para uma abordagem sociológica de Os Maias de Eça de Queirós". She is the author of around 100 publications in magazines and newspapers in the field of criticism and literary studies. She was a member of parliament for the Socialist Party and Minister of Culture between 2005 and 2008. She was vice-president of the Serralves Foundation, having replaced Ana Pinho as head in December 2024. 41 - Rita Pereira, 43, actress and TVI presenter After starring in the soap opera "Quero é Viver", which aired on TVI from January 3, 2022 to March 18, 2023, and returning as Soraia Rochinha, the character she became known for in the first series in 2005, in the new series "Morangos com Açúcar", Rita Pereira will return to TVI's fiction. In a recent interview, she said that what made a woman empowered was the freedom she felt in speaking out and "the will I have to empower other women". She currently has 1.5 million followers on Facebook and 1.6 million followers on Instagram. 42 - Ana Garcia Martins, 44, digital influencer, writer and columnist From the blog A Pipoca Mais Doce, Ana Garcia Martins has moved on to other digital networks such as Instagram and Facebook. She has also done stand-up comedy and presented television programs. She was a commentator on five editions of Big Brother on TVI and currently has the show Temos de Falar on SIC Mulher, with Bárbara Guimarães and Ana Galvão, and is one of the resident contestants on the new edition of the show "Taskmaster" on RTP1. She also has a daily slot, "Ninguém POD comigo", on RFM's Café da Manhã program. She has a degree in Communication Sciences from the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. She has three postgraduate degrees: Communication, Public Relations and Protocol (in Madrid), Marketing Management (at ISEG) and Image Consulting (at ISLA). 43 - Nazaré Costa Cabral, 52, President of the Superior Council of the Public Finance Council She has a degree, master's and doctorate in Law from the Lisbon Faculty of Law (FDL) of the University of Lisbon, and a degree in Economics from the Faculty of Economics of Universidade Nova de Lisboa, now Nova SBE. An Associate Professor with tenure at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, she has also taught at several Portuguese and foreign universities, and has a strong research activity. Since March 2019, she has chaired the Public Finance Council. Since June 2022, she has been a national corresponding member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences (Class of Letters, 6th section - Economics and Finance). 44 - Luísa Salgueiro, 57, Mayor of Matosinhos and President of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities She has a law degree from the Catholic University of Porto. She practiced law and was a legal adviser to Porto City Council. In 1997, she was elected as a councillor on Matosinhos Town Council, where she remained until 2009. Four years earlier, she was elected as a member of parliament and remained there until 2017. This year, she ran for Matosinhos City Council and won. Since 2021, she has been president of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities. In November 2010, Luísa Salgueiro became the first woman to hold a management position at NATO, when she was elected vice-chair of the Commission for Energy and Environmental Security. 45 - Sandra Santos, CEO of Logoplaste She was CEO of BA Glass for a decade, where she joined in 1999 from BES, now Novobanco, and has served on the boards of companies such as EDP, Navigator, BA Glass and the Titan Cement Group. At BA Glass, she "successfully led the transformation of the company from a regional player to a global industry leader, tripling revenues and expanding operations in Europe and North America", points out the press release from Logoplaste, which, with around 70 factories in 17 countries, had a turnover of around one billion euros in 2024 and, as a family-owned company, has Filipe de Botton and Alexandre Relvas as its main shareholders, as well as the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (OTPP), with 60% of the capital. He studied Management at the Porto School of Economics and an MBA at Porto Business School. 46 - Filipa Urbano Calvão, 53, President of the Court of Auditors She is the first woman to preside over the Court of Auditors, which she has done since October 12, 2024, after having already led the National Data Protection Commission between 2012 and 2023, having participated in the adaptation of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) into national law. Born in Coimbra, he graduated in Law from the Faculty of Law (Porto School) of the Portuguese Catholic University, and holds a PhD in Law in the area of Legal and Political Sciences from the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra. 47 - Marina Costa Lobo, 52, director of the Institute of Social Sciences. A researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences, she was elected director of the ICS, where she has been since 2001. She was born in Lisbon, but spent the last three years of secondary school in Lausanne. She returned to Portugal and worked at Herdade do Esporão, before returning to the UK to do a degree in Political and Economic Science at Durham, in the North of England. He spent a year in London, at Andersen Consulting, but decided to go to Oxford, where he did a PhD in Political Science, with a thesis on the Power of the Prime Minister and the functioning of government in democratic Portugal. He has published on political institutions in Portugal, political parties and the EU, and on the impact of leaders on voting behavior. 48 - Marlene Vieira, 45, chef and restaurant owner Her restaurant Marlene, which opened in 2022 and of which she is the chef and owner, has been awarded a Michelin star, something that hasn't happened to a female chef for 30 years, after Maria Alice Marto, of TiAlice (1993/1996). Together with her husband, chef João Sá, who received a Michelin star in 2024 for his restaurant Salá, Marlene Vieira also runs ZumZum Gastrobar and a corner at Time Out Market. "This is a career award that I put off many times because I didn't want to give up other things in my life," she said, referring to her nine-year-old daughter, Isabel. She was a judge and teacher for two seasons of the Chefs Academy competition on RTP 1 and for MasterChef on RTP in 2021. The pastéis de nata she made at the Alfama restaurant in Manhattan were recognized by The New York Times critics with 3 stars. He returned to Portugal and worked in 5-star hotels and some restaurants. 49. Maria João Avillez, 80, writer and commentator She began her career in the world of communication at the age of 17, on RTP's Programa Juvenil, and took part in Rádio Renascença's Olá Companheiros program. Ten years later, she began as a trainee editor at the evening newspaper A Capital, from where she left in 1974 for Expresso, where she became editor-in-chief and won the EFE Journalism Prize with Sá Carneiro - o Último Retrato. Between 1987 and 1989, she worked as an advisor to Roberto Carneiro, then Minister of Education. She later worked for Público and collaborated with Diário de Notícias, Sábado magazine, TSF, Rádio Renascença, RTP, SIC Notícias, Observador and CNN Portugal. He has written biographies of Sá Carneiro and Mário Soares, and a book on Álvaro Cunhal, among others. In recent years, he has interviewed Pope Francis for TVI and in an Observador podcast, Eu estive lá, about 16 key moments in the country since April 25, he interviewed, among others, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Cavaco Silva, Passos Coelho, António Vitorino, Fernando Medina and Paulo Portas. 50 - Sara Falcão Casaca, 54, full professor at ISEG Sara Falcão Casaca was president of the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality (CIG - Comissão para a Cidadania e Igualdade de Género) and vice-president and interim president of the Economic and Social Council (CES) and is a full professor at the Higher Institute of Economics and Management of the University of Lisbon (ISEG-ULisboa). Her research and publications have focused on: gender and the labour market; the gender pay gap; gender and organizations; gender and decision-making in the economic sphere; and the work-family relationship. She is a researcher at the Centre for Research in Economic Sociology and Organizations (SOCIUS), which she currently chairs, and deputy director of the Editorial Board of the journal Análise Social of the Institute of Social Sciences. She has a degree in Sociology (ISCTE, 1994) and a PhD from ISEG in 2005. Read more about Portugal's 50 Most Influential Women 2024