Podcast
He dreamed of being a doctor and ended up an economist. For 18 years he leveraged the development of Unilabs, where he became CEO before leaving for a strategic break that would eventually lead him to the leadership of the Ageas Portugal Group. Luís Menezes, the guest of this episode of the podcast “The CEO is the limit” says that he is more made up of his mistakes than his successes. The ability to not replicate bad decisions is what makes a good leader
Luís Menezes always thought he was going to be a doctor, following the long family tradition where there have been doctors for more than three generations, and he guarantees that he did not have a “plan B” in case “plan A fails”. But it failed. He didn’t go into Medicine and even studied Chemical Engineering, but it was Economics that ended up enchanting him.
He graduated from Universidade Católica and added several executive trainings in management, international leadership and digital transformation to his academic curriculum, at Insead and IMD. Adding knowledge and broadening horizons of thought is something he says is essential to become stronger as a leader.
Luís Menezes, CEO of Grupo Ageas Portugal, during the recording of the podcast “The CEO is the limit”
Despite deriving his path from the areas of Economics and Management, Health ended up being a guiding thread in Luís Menezes’ career path. After his first international experience working for JP Morgan, in London – which he remembers the extreme intensity of the routines: “atSometimes we worked one or two days almost in a row and where we ended up resting was sleeping for 20 or 25 minutes in the bathroom, which was a recurring practice” -, he worked at Unilabs for 18 years, becoming CEO of the company.
“I had three cycles of growth and restructuring at Unilabs. We managed to have people prepared, leadership aligned to understand that companies live in cycles. When this is within the company’s gear, it brings a lot of agility and execution capacity”, he explains . He joined the Ageas Portugal Group in May 2024 and became CEO six months later.
He says that the career trajectory he built is much more based on mistakes than on successes. “A leader’s superpower comes from the ability to not repeat mistakes”, he emphasizes.
Cátia Mateus podcast The CEO is the limit
The CEO Is the Limit is Express’s leadership and career podcast. Every week, journalist Cátia Mateus shows 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:
