RubenDos Santos
Technologist. Born in Portugal, formed in Switzerland, building from the Algarve for Europe.
The facts
Where a fact has a public source, the mark beside it links there.
- Born
- Portugal
- Based
- Portimão, Algarve
- Languages
- Portuguese, French, English, Spanish, Italian
- Switzerland
- Thirty years
- Career
- Twenty-five years in IT. CIO of a Swiss industrial company at thirty.
- Consulting
- Solvetus — IT for businesses across Europe, the Americas and worldwide
- Source: solvetus.com
From Portugal, through Switzerland, back to Portugal.
I was born in Portugal and lived there until I was eleven. Then my family moved to Switzerland, where I grew up, studied computer technology and built a career in IT — CIO of a major Swiss industrial company at thirty.
Close to thirty years in Switzerland shaped how I think: precision, the long view, and the belief that good systems make everything else possible.
Portugal never left me. I came back because I missed my country, and because I believed I could do something useful with what I had learned. Too many small businesses here run on a Gmail address and an Excel file, without the systems they need to compete and grow. I know what the right tools can do when they are properly implemented. I came back to close that gap.
The weather, the food and the family didn't hurt either.
What I won't compromise on.
Technology should serve people, not extract from them.
Tools that lock you in, data that belongs to someone else, systems designed to create dependency — these are choices, not inevitabilities. I build the other way.
Small businesses deserve real systems.
A Gmail address and an Excel file are not an infrastructure. Every small business deserves the tools that used to be reserved for corporations — properly implemented, not just installed.
European digital sovereignty matters.
Our businesses and institutions should control their own data and infrastructure. The cloud shouldn't mean handing your autonomy to a jurisdiction that doesn't share your values.
Build for ten years, not next quarter.
I'm not chasing trends. The things worth building take time to get right and longer to matter. I'd rather do fewer things properly than many things quickly.