He is the Executive Director of the Innovation Ecosystem at NOVA SBE. Expert, professor-of-practice and consultant in the areas of Innovation and
Entrepreneurship. He is a member of the Berkeley Innovation Forum and an external expert of the European Commission and the OECD for the
HEInnovate initiative. Rui is currently a strategic advisor to Sogrape and sits at the Advisory Board of Grow by José de Mello and the Investment
Committee of Beta Capital. He was Executive Director at Porto Business School (University of Porto), where he also founded and directed the Center for
Business Innovation and was co-director of the Postgraduate Program in Business Innovation and of the Sustainable Management Executive Program.
He was the founder and coordinator of Porto Design Factory, at Politécnico do Porto, where he managed more than 100 innovation projects with some of
the largest companies in the world, also involving universities such as Stanford, Aalto, St. Gallen or São Paulo. In this context, he has integrated several
innovation ecosystems, namely the Design Factory Global Network and the Stanford University Global Alliance for Redesign. Rui hás taught at Porto
Business School - University of Porto (MBA, Post-Graduation and Executive Education), Estonian Business School (MBA), Instituto Superior de
Contabilidade e Administração do Porto - Politécnico do Porto (Bachelors and Masters), Escola Superior de Media Artes e Design - Politécnico do Porto
(Bachelors and Masters), Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão - Politécnico do Porto (Bachelors). Rui was also part of the group of founders of the
ScaleUp Porto initiative and works, as a mentor, entrepreneur and consultant, in several entrepreneurship ecosystems and with several startups.