Betar

Tell us about your education and the beginning of your professional career.

I completed my master’s degree in civil engineering in 2009 and began my career in ​​water supply infrastructure development. Later, I had the opportunity to participate in large-scale projects supervising dam construction, collaborating with leading companies in the energy sector, such as EDP and Iberdrola. This experience allowed me to consolidate technical and management skills in complex projects. About six years ago, I decided to take a new step and joined the road infrastructure sector, assuming the role of technical manager at Globalvia Transmontana. For almost three years, I have been the Technical and Maintenance Director at Globalvia Portugal, covering the Transmontana and Beira Interior concessions.

What are your main responsibilities and the biggest challenges of your role?

At Globalvia, my main responsibility is to ensure the safe maintenance of the road infrastructure under our management, ensuring that it meets legal requirements and defined quality standards. This involves coordinating preventive and corrective maintenance plans, managing contracts, monitoring performance, and implementing innovative solutions to optimize asset durability.
One of the biggest challenges is reconciling the need to maintain high levels of safety and comfort for users with the efficient management of available resources. In addition, technological evolution brings new opportunities, but also requires rapid adaptation — for example, integrating advanced monitoring systems and new digital tools, to move from a reactive approach to predictive maintenance. Another major challenge is aligning interventions and methodologies with sustainability goals.

Betar has been your partner in several projects. How do the services provide fit Globalvia’s needs?

Betar has played a very important role as a technical partner, especially in projects that require innovative solutions and advanced structural analyses. The collaboration has allowed us to integrate specialized engineering knowledge with Globalvia’s operational needs, ensuring that interventions are planned and executed with technical rigor and aligned with our safety, durability, and efficiency objectives. In addition, Betar has contributed its know-how, professionalism, and availability in detailed monitoring of our structures, providing valid technical engineering solutions to a wide variety of problems. This partnership reinforces our ability to evolve towards increasingly intelligent and sustainable infrastructure management.

In general terms, what does Globalvia’s work in Portugal consist of?

Globalvia in Portugal is responsible for the comprehensive management of two strategic road concessions: the A4 Transmontana and the A23 – Beira Interior Highway. Our work goes far beyond simple road maintenance. It involves ensuring safety, availability, and quality of service for thousands of users daily. This includes preventive and corrective maintenance, monitoring, surveillance, and continuous patrolling of infrastructure, and the implementation of innovative solutions that increase the durability and efficiency of assets. We have a strong commitment to sustainability, and our approach is increasingly geared towards digitalization, allowing us to evolve towards more efficient management, ensuring that infrastructure meets current and future challenges.

What are the main challenges and perspectives for the future?

The main challenges are directly linked to the evolution of the sector and specifically, at this stage, with the approaching end of some concession contracts, which could translate into new challenges in Portugal. It is important to note that, in our daily activities, we have a responsibility and concern to ensure sustainable operations, reducing the environmental impact of our operations, considering, for example, decarbonization targets.
Initiatives related to business innovation and our core activities are one of the pillars for Globalvia’s future. We seek to keep up with trends and contribute to defining them, keeping in mind that technology is advancing at an accelerated pace and that keeping up with this evolution is essential to ensure competitiveness. However, this paradigm requires investment, process adaptation, and team training, which leads us to another challenge: the efficient management of resources. To this end, we invest in continuous training and the creation of a collaborative environment because we believe that committed people are the key to transforming challenges into opportunities.
Globalvia sees Portugal as a priority market and is strongly committed to expansion through strategic acquisitions. The goal is to strengthen its position and remain one of the main players in the road concession sector in Portugal.

This interview is an integral part of Revista Artes & Letras #183, december 2025
Partially automatic translation from portuguese: some expressions may differ from their actual meaning.