1º episódio - EY e um café com… Maria João Carioca, CFO Galp

First of all, thank you for the opportunity. The format is very interesting, so it is a pleasure to be here in this trial with you. The challenges of Galp largely revolve around something shared by the entire sector: the fact that we have an energy transition ahead of us that we have to manage in a way that makes society comfortable, as well as our investors. Therefore, the challenge is to find the support for our story. We are a company with a history of growth, profitable growth, and to do this in coordination with an energy transition that we are all designing as we go, managing this balance between profitability, energy transition, and sustainability.

Very positive. I was very well welcomed at Galp. I came because of the interest and permanent curiosity I have to learn something new and face a challenge that truly calls to me. I loved my time at Caixa, but when presented with the possibility of learning a new sector, a new company, a function that in many aspects has angles that are also new, it was obviously a very strong appeal, and at this moment it leaves me very satisfied. It is a strong learning experience, and that is exactly what gives me energy and motivates me to seek more, and I am having it in full.

And now, advice for those who are starting their career in finance and aspire to become a CFO one day: I think one of the main ones is that if you are just starting out, do not plan everything in too much detail, because life takes many turns. What has served me well is being available to turn with life rather than necessarily having a very pre-defined, closed, and rigid path. And I think it is that availability to embrace a challenge, that availability to not say no when an opportunity is placed in front of you, that availability to want to learn. In my case, that is what has driven my career, and I believe it can be useful to others. Also, I think it is always important to keep in mind in the finance function, because sometimes it is a function that is very self-fulfilling, but it is worth much more when it is well articulated with the company's strategy, when it works well with the business, when it is part of a whole instead of being a very closed and self-contained area. So, be in the company as a whole.

With a lot of patience from my family, it is always the answer. More than me not giving up, it is the things that together we manage to create as spaces of balance over the years. I have become, for example, fiercely protective of my weekends. I think they are part of my balance. I am aware that each person has their own balance, so I have no ready-made recipe, but I think much of it comes from being very transparent with the people around us. My husband, my daughters know when I am going through a more difficult period, they know when I am happy with what I am doing, and therefore I also find more energy to do other things. They know when I need support and vice versa. We have to be able to strike these balances. So I have no secret recipe other than navigating by sight, but always letting those close to us know which way we are going.

I really like cities, but in cities I get very tired. My husband and I are the type who can walk 20 km in a day in a city, covering everything on foot. I am not a big fan of the beach, but on the beach I can rest. This year I am going to Canada to do trekking in British Columbia, near Victoria, to see the glacier area, the mountains, to see nature literally. Once again, I think I like diversity. I rarely repeat a place, I like new things, and to keep adding to my bucket list, adding experiences, and to keep ticking them off, saying, oh look, this is new and it's good.