NEW DELHI — Unified Brainz celebrated the glorious careers of prominent leaders from around the globe, leading by example with resilience, diligence, and perseverance on the occasion of World Environment Day on June 5, 2022.
The launch showcased the first edition of the unique dark mode Coffee Table Book, “Who’s Who of The World,” which was unveiled during its virtual event. This exquisite ceremony saw the presence of trailblazers from various industries like Carlos Santos who have scaled massive heights of success and have shared their passion journey.
When the world was struggling to deal with the pandemic, Carlos Santos’ team at Ethos Asset Management was burning the midnight oil. They created a totally new and innovative way to secure their assets and rebalance their portfolio which is 100 per cent scalable to any country and any bank. The structure in question decentralized the intervention of the banks and put the transaction at a purely commercial relationship level.
“Our team has never worked harder! The pandemic allowed us to save time on flights, traffic and fixed costs while attending more meetings than ever. We used this time to restructure our entire Group and we realized our best performance during these months in our entire history,” says a visibly proud Carlos, who firmly believes that ‘problems bring solutions’.
Carlos Santos is the Founder-CEO of the US-based Ethos Asset Management, a full-service project financing firm with Global reach in resource mobilization. They finance the government and privately-promoted projects in every continent and every sector.
Speaking about the success that Ethos has achieved in more than 70 countries, Carlos says, “At Ethos, we create value for all shareholders and stakeholders. We only invest if people benefit, and we add value to communities globally. Infrastructure and education are two key sectors that fit our project financing model for long-term sustainability. We invest to develop society and economies, and generate projects and subsequent growth.”
Carlos is driven by the passion to influence people’s lives. He opines nothing is better than seeing the face of people when their projects materialize or witnessing them leave a problematic life situation just because he believes in them. “The closing of a deal is something that has no possible explanation for the feeling. It is a demonstration and materialization of the compensation for the work you do. This is what makes me wake up every day,” he adds.
Carlos was born in an upper-middle-class family in Portugal; his mother is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and his father is a successful businessman in the automobile industry. He found early inspiration in his father, who is good at managing money, but even better at managing people.
After completing his schooling, Carlos opted to study Economics at Lisbon University, where he was the ‘Top Student’ awardee from 2012-14. While pursuing his Masters, he also began to take classes at the University and created his first private company, wherein he made his first million. In 2015, however, he lost everything when he made wrong investments and was subject to many scams.
As someone who advises leading financial institutions today, how did Carlos map his recovery? He says his first goal was trying to guarantee that you could model the financial markets without losses through his proprietary algorithm, which alerts in line with ‘enter and exit positions’ in the commodities, currency, bonds, futures and share markets.
He then started allocating part of the trading profits to project financing for long-term investments with fixed returns. His aim was to bring capital to sectors overlooked by other financial entities. For instance, why would someone not invest in South Africa, Laos, Eswatini or Brazil? He concurred that the macroeconomic and operational risk related to such entities was the reason.
Young and imposing, Carlos Santos’ emerging stock in international finance has seen him bestowed with prestigious honours such as Banco de Portugal 2015; Portugal Best Economist 2016; E&Y Award 2018; Africa Dubai Honours Award for Excellence and Leadership Prowess 2021; and Best Professor 2019/2020.
He counts teaching among his most proud achievements. “I had the honour and pleasure to have the role of Professor at Lisbon School of Economics and Management (ISEG) of University of Lisbon where I lecture Microeconomics I and II, Macroeconomics I and II, Evaluation Projects, Corporate Finance and Seminary,” says the versatile Carlos Santos.
