At 31 years old, the young CEO of Arcadia, who shares the management of the company with his father and his aunt, heirs of the brand that has remained in the imagination and hearts of the Portuguese, has well-organized ideas and knows the direction this love brand takes. You must follow.
He graduated in Management from Cass Business School in London, where he won a scholarship and finished with first class honours. In London, he worked for five years in various international investment banks, in the areas of mergers and acquisitions and capital markets. But he always had in mind the desire to build on his great-grandfather’s legacy one day. That day arrived in 2019. JE wanted to know more about what he had brought in his luggage and his plans for the future.
We arranged to meet at Arcadia’s newest store in the Portuguese capital, and that’s where the conversation began.
This store is in a residential area par excellence. It was a decent standard In exploring the site?
We know this area already, because not far from here we have our store on Via de Roma, which was the first store we opened in Lisbon, and where we felt how the people of Lisbon look at Arcadia. It was the first store, and even today, this perception is still very strong for many consumers in Lisbon. Over the course of more than a decade, we’ve gotten to know the customer here at Alvalade & Arero better and better, and we’ve realized that they perfectly fit our customer’s goal. Moreover, it is a residential and classic neighborhood of Lisbon, and at the same time – like everything in life, it has to develop – the company realized, through exploration, that this area of Da Igreja Street has an interesting dynamic, because it combines the residential aspect, But also works that attract a younger audience, both residents and non-residents, which adds more dynamism. For Arcadia, which today finds itself at the crossroads between the third and fourth generation, and with the aim of innovating while always maintaining its traditions, we believe that the brand fits like a glove in this field. In fact, this year, 2023, we will complete 90 years of history, which coincides with the culmination of an investment plan that began in 2019, designed by me, my father, and my aunt. The idea was to start in 2020, but we got a surprise. [sorriso]
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