António Costa Amaral

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Investment Executive

Capital Projects & Infrastructure · Real Estate · Private Equity · $1B+ assets developed across Europe, Africa & the Middle East · IESE MBA · Oxford PE · LBS Proj Fin · PfMP PgMP PMP

Summary

Experience

• Senior Investment Advisor - Real Estate Development, PE/VC, Infrastructure
  Lisbon
  January 2023 - Present

  Advisor on capital-intensive investment - real estate, energy and infrastructure, construction, and new ventures - for boards, principals, and family offices. Principal on early-stage ventures.

  Solving vastly complex challenges that require sharp multidisciplinary know-how - by injecting market and economic insight, creative depth, and boardroom-level strategic command.

  Selected Projects - Capital-intensive mandates in real estate, energy and infrastructure, and new ventures:

  • ANGOLA · Infrastructure / Energy · Strategic Advisor - A multi-billion-dollar hydropower megaproject uniting industry giants across three continents under severe financing, cross-cultural, and geopolitical pressure. Brought in to install governance safeguarding the client's interests: reshaping organization and decision flow, bridging project cultures, and holding the line through dramatic rebaselining.
  • PORTUGAL · Real Estate Development · Development Advisor - Prime residential development from concept to delivery - business and technical feasibility, asset optimization, consents and licensing strategy with municipal authorities and utilities, development oversight, and value engineering for institutional and family-office capital.
  • DUBAI · Construction & Development · Strategic Advisor - Advising a major real estate and infrastructure development and construction group with a portfolio of several hundred million dollars, guiding its shift from instinct-led to institutionally disciplined - partnership structuring across operational, technological, commercial, and financial dimensions, and systematic conversion of latent asset value into performance.
  • DUBAI · Real Estate / Proptech · Co-investor and Strategist - Co-founding an AI-driven investment vehicle to capture assets with latent ROI as the Dubai market matures from speculative to institutional. Principal capital at risk.
• Vice-President, Policy Lab Director, International Officer
  Iniciativa Liberal · Portugal
  December 2018 - December 2025 (7 years 1 month)

  As Vice-President, I forged Portugal's liberal party into a national force - fourth largest, elected to every parliament from local to European, in a dozen elections.

  Scaled a disruptive political startup against entrenched incumbents and existential risk - built the organization, governance, and operating system that made it durable.

  Delivered institutional design, coalition architecture, programme development, political messaging, campaigning, boardroom clarity, war room leadership.

  • Vice-President - member of the Executive Commission; co-led party strategy, governance, and growth during the party's peak growth years - across a dozen elections at every level of public power
  • Director, IL Policy Lab - built and ran the party's policy development function; transformed political vision into legislative actions that shaped national debate across local, regional, national, and European mandates
  • International Officer - anchored IL's institutional presence across Europe; built the party's network within the liberal and democratic ecosystem from the ground up
  • 2024 National Elections - candidate #3, Madeira
  • 2024 European Elections - led campaign strategy; stood as #3 on the national list
• Investor & Advisor
  February 2019 - December 2019 (11 months)

  Invested in early-stage startups, committed own capital, mentored founders. Engaged in civic leadership training (Junior Achievement, PMI nas Escolas), and with Iniciativa Liberal - the party I would go on to help build over the next seven years.

• Portfolio Director - Real Estate, Capital Projects & Infrastructure
  WORLDONE – Gestão de Participações Sociais · Luanda, Angola
  January 2017 - February 2019 (2 years 2 months)

  Steered a $150M+ portfolio of capital and infrastructure ventures - real estate, manufacturing, urban services - through Angola's severest economic contraction in decades - at Worldone, a diversified holding group - built to create and sustain value across the full economic cycle. When competitors collapsed, preserved capital, fulfilled obligations, and held strategic position. Seized selective opportunities created by market distress.

  • Program Management - Capital Projects & Infrastructure
  • Project Strategy, Project Governance, Project Finance
  • Non-Financial Asset Management
  • Business Development
• Managing Director - Parcela 1 Waterfront SPV, Real Estate Development
  SANFORD & MANHATTAN · Luanda, Angola
  January 2015 - January 2017 (2 years 1 month)

  Commanded a $90M+ waterfront development end to end - full P&L and operational authority, from funding through offload.

  Secured approvals, anchor tenants, and contractors across engineering, sales, legal, finance, and operations.

  Parcela 1 - Luanda's landmark waterfront development: a high-end mixed-use complex combining large-format office space for multinationals, a leading branded hotel, flagship commercial units for major brands, and a luxury residential tower overlooking the Bay of Luanda. The first and defining project to reframe the city's waterfront after its major urban renewal.

  Directed the DARWIN real estate and infrastructure portfolio in parallel.

• Project Director - Real Estate, Capital Projects & Infrastructure Portfolio Management
  DARWIN Investment Management · Luanda, Angola
  October 2014 - January 2017 (2 years 4 months)

  Led some of Angola's most ambitious capital projects during a period of intense market complexity - combining technical, financial, political, and operational demands at scale - at Darwin, an independent investment house managing a significant portfolio of large-scale real estate, infrastructure, and healthcare mandates.

  • Hospital Universitário de Luanda ($20m) - A landmark public health initiative: a for-profit, socially driven hospital-university complex designed with a reputable international partner to structurally address Angola's most persistent health challenges. Scope spanned facility design, international HR architecture, and full supply chain structuring - navigating partner complexity, regulatory ambiguity, political dynamics, and technical demands simultaneously - one of the most complex project designs ever undertaken in the country.
  • Portfolio oversight of Parcela 1 (executed via dedicated SPV - see Sanford & Manhattan)
  • Project Hospital do Prenda, and other brownfield/restructuring projects
  • Overall Project Strategy and Business development
• Project Director - Real Estate, Capital Projects & Infrastructure
  FINICAPITAL, Investimentos e Gestão · Luanda, Angola
  April 2013 - October 2014 (1 year 7 months)

  Project Director across two of Luanda's most complex large-scale developments - commanding highly disparate specialty teams across strategy, finance, legal, engineering, and marketing, and aligning them to strategic project goals - as Finicapital consolidated its position as one of Angola's most professional development groups.

  • Vila Rubra (150ha) - as Programme Manager/CEO: a new self-sustaining urban development south of Luanda, conceived and delivered from zero: urban planning, infrastructure, architecture, and full construction coordination across 1M+ sqm GBA.
  • Cidade Financeira ($100m+) - as acting Chief Commercial Officer: brought in to overhaul commercial and technical feasibility; redirected the project's strategic and commercial foundations.
• Senior Project Manager - Real Estate, Capital Projects & Infrastructure
  FINICAPITAL, Investimentos e Gestão · Luanda, Angola
  September 2009 - July 2012 (2 years 11 months)

  Delivered some of Luanda's most ambitious urban development projects in conditions where capital is expensive, execution risk is extreme, and foresight and adaptability are non-negotiable - as part of Finicapital, the capital projects and real estate arm of one of Angola's leading financial groups, and a leading player in Angola's unprecedented economic growth.

  • Luanda Waterfront ($350m+) - as Assistant Project Manager (2nd in charge): major bay waterfront transformation: infrastructure, environmental remediation, dredging and land reclamation, and new public spaces - reshaping the face of the city.
  • Luanda Towers ($150m) - as Project Manager: three large-scale residential towers in the heart of Luanda, purpose-built to house 300+ expat families for a major oil company.
  • Project Manager of Projects Robert Hudson ($110m), Cidade Alta ($40m), Rainha Ginga ($60m), and Praia do Bispo ($25m)
• MBA - Master in Business Administration - IESE MBA 2009
  IESE Business School · Greater Barcelona Metropolitan Area
  September 2007 - April 2009 (1 year 8 months)

  Full-time two-year bilingual MBA at IESE Business School - ranked #1 globally by the Financial Times, alongside HBS, INSEAD, LBS, IMD in the world's most selective tier.

  A thorough preparation for senior business leadership - targeted for professionals heading to the leading consulting, investment banking, and industry firms.

  • Attained the DIEN - Diploma Intermedio de Español de los Negócios
  • Electives on Advanced Operations, Organizational Design, Strategy and Leadership
  • President of the International Politics and Economics Club

  Projects commissioned by corporate partners of IESE Business School:

  • Strategic repositioning of Telefónica España in the mobile telecom global market
  • Rework of the supply-chain and commercial channel network of Nike in Turkey
  • Decommission plan of oil & gas production in North Sea, for syndicate of producers
  • Restructuring of European division of Indian consultancy
• Consultant, Operations and Logistics
  Idom Consulting · Greater Bilbao Metropolitan Area
  June 2008 - August 2008 (3 months)

  MBA Summer internship at Idom - a leading Spanish engineering consultancy.

  • Developed consulting projects in the fields of operations management and operational finance (supply-chain integration, factory and service operations, logistics)
  • Designed the macro-layout and inbound/outbound/internal logistics of a steel mill plant in Monterrey, Mexico - built as designed.
• Civil Engineer - Engineering and Construction
  Teixeira Duarte, S.A. · Lisboa
  October 2000 - July 2007 (6 years 10 months)

  Started as a structural engineer at Teixeira Duarte - one of Portugal's most respected engineering and construction groups, with an international footprint across four continents - and grew into project management and internal consulting across buildings, bridges, PPPs, and major earthworks.

  • as Structural Design Engineer - Developed advanced structural and geotechnical engineering projects (e.g. bridges, buildings, large-scaled foundations and earthworks); excelled at devising solutions for highly-constrained and complex problems
  • as Internal Consulting Engineer - Improved cross-functional integration and operational efficiency across the group's engineering, constructions, and support divisions.
  • as Project Manager - Integrated multidisciplinary teams for large-scale engineering projects, including engineering design and tendering for PPPs

Education

• Master of Business Administration - MBA, Business Administration and Management, General
  IESE Business School - University of Navarra
  2007 - 2009
• Oxford Private Equity Programme
  University of Oxford - Saïd Business School
  2017
• Project & Infrastructure Finance Programme
  London Business School
  2015
• Licenciatura (5yr MEng equivalent), Civil Engineering - Structures
  Instituto Superior Técnico
  1995 - 2000

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