{"id":8235069,"date":"2025-03-13T13:27:50","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T13:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aese.pt\/testimonial\/ricardo-martins\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T11:54:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T11:54:01","slug":"ricardo-martins","status":"publish","type":"testimonial","link":"https:\/\/www.aese.pt\/en\/testimonials\/ricardo-martins\/","title":{"rendered":"Ricardo Martins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How did the Executive MBA impact your leadership skills and how did it apply it to your career?<\/strong>When I started the MBA I had already been the CEO of CloudComputing for 9 years. At that time I felt that I lacked tools to make decisions of financial origin, particularly in investment projects. Additionally, in addition to management accounting and advanced finance, I was also able to apply other knowledge directly to CloudComputing, in varied areas such as leadership and conflict management, negotiation and marketing.
In the theme of leadership and conflict management, the need to have to systematically argue with six other colleagues, with different views on the various case studies, and to do it again in the classroom with the professors during the two years of the MBA, allowed me to gain greater agility in the decision-making processes.
It is necessary to deal with the contradictory whenever we are working on the case method used in AESE, which makes the process more interesting and aligned with the modern management of organizations. The simultaneous gain of greater agility and greater prudence is important in the management of daily operations, but it is also important in retaining and capturing talent.
At the end of the process, there is an ambition to do more, to think more globally and not to be afraid to take risks when we have the right knowledge and people. In the end, there is also a group of fellow friends who helped on the trip and who serve as a reference for us to do better. <\/p>\n\n


2. What was the biggest challenge you faced during the program and how did you overcome it?<\/strong>I thank Professor Andr\u00e9 Vilares Morgado for the argumentative and patient way in which he presented the teaching method used at AESE. I remember the phrase “at least you’ll have fun” when we discussed the problem of time management. The promise was fulfilled, despite the difficulty in time management it was always fun and stimulating.
The biggest challenge has always been time management, reconciling the new challenge of doing 5 Harvard cases a week, being (actively) present in class, participating in family life, taking care of a 7-year-old girl and even leading and managing a cybersecurity services company during the pandemic.
The family is a pillar that does not let us fall. Colleagues at both CloudComputing and AESE were also a group that, either because of their demand or their companionship, always kept their focus and motivation high. In the times of greatest stumbling there were sleepless nights, then the coffee helped a lot.
3. How did you prepare you to launch a start-up recently bought by an international company?<\/strong>With the digital transformation of organizations and their greater reliance on integrated technology and information systems, organizations have become more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Thus, the category where CloudComputing stands out, cybersecurity, in particular access and identity management, has become one of the focus areas of organizations. For this reason, private investment funds have been very active in acquisition projects in the category. Although we were not looking for a change in the company, we began to be approached by national and international entities for a possible acquisition operation. I saw this dynamic as an opportunity to learn and contemplated inorganic growth as a possible growth strategy for CloudComputing, particularly in international markets.
The MBA prepares us to deal with this in several ways, the most important of which are the study of the governance models of organizations and the application of methodologies for evaluating the value of the company.
In 2022 we were focused on growing internationally through the acquisition of complementary companies in two European markets and in this sense it was interesting to learn from the market. Our dilemma in the process of acquiring companies for CloudComputing was related to risk. What I had studied on the subject during the MBA told me that the failure rate of acquired companies was over 70%, making the risk of financial loss in this type of investment high. Thus, it was crucial to apply strategies that reduced risk.
One of the areas that I became more aware of during the MBA, ESG (environmental, social and governance issues), was the focus of a Swedish fund that approached us, classifying it as an impact fund. This fact was enough to want to listen to them. The feeling that remained in the first contact was the transparency of the process. They applied a totally decentralized government model, allowing the autonomy of organizations to be maintained, very similar to the model present in the Harvard Berkshire Hathaway case that had been discussed in class. In short, they rewarded a continuity model and CloudComputing would continue to be CloudComputing, the culture and identities were maintained, the tools were improved. These tools were particularly useful in our international growth, namely in the acquisition of companies into CloudComputing. It was the first time I heard the model that was presented to me. After a few months of in-depth analysis, I confirmed that the project was very interesting and that it would create growth opportunities for the entire organization. So we made the decision to join Allurity<\/a>, one of the leading providers of cybersecurity services in Europe.
It is important to consider that the knowledge acquired during the MBA allowed us to improve the ability to see value where it existed and discard what was superfluous.<\/p>\n\n

4. What does the CloudComputing business consist of?<\/strong>CloudComputing specializes in zero-trust journeys. That is, when an employee or a customer uses an organization’s services, a journey occurs. As a matter of principle, during this journey, information security must be ensured and at the same time the provision of an excellent experience. CloudComputing delivers what is necessary so that the user journey, which starts on any device and progresses to the consumption of remote information, is done securely, depends on the context and maintains the consistency of the user’s identity throughout the journey. This necessarily implies the application of complementary concepts, such as: <\/p>\n\n