Ricardo Gonçalves Cerqueira, CEO of Rekeep Portugal, was the 94th guest of the ECO podcast "E Se Corre Bem?" A law graduate, he initially briefly ventured into the public sector, but around age 22 joined his family's business, which his father had created after leaving a partnership linked to hygienization and private security. The CEO believes that to make good decisions it is essential to know all the intricacies of the business, going through various areas such as operations, commercial, public procurement and human resources.
During his trajectory, he identified the need to create an intermediate management structure, since in family businesses everyone reports directly to the CEO. He made a combination of experience and innovation, leveraging people from his father's era and bringing in a new generation from university and the competition. His goal was to transform a cleaning and hygienization company into a multi-services platform that offered integrated solutions for cleaning, maintenance and meal provision with a single point of contact.
The company merged with the Italian group Rekeep, the leader in Italy in cleaning, maintenance and catering, to bring know-how, technical and technological capacity. Ricardo Gonçalves Cerqueira had almost two years of negotiations before the merger, which allowed him to get to know the company well and ended up becoming CEO of Rekeep Portugal. He argues that robotization does not replace people, but helps optimize processes, as happens in hospitals with robots that work during the night.
As a leader, his only concern is the result of operations, giving total freedom to employees to manage their schedules. "I don't care at all if people are in the office from 9 to 6," he stated. However, he acknowledges difficulties in talent acquisition, especially in operational roles, where the company depends on employees from other origins to be able to meet demand.
