About

As general counsel, Antonio Neto Alves has been pivotal in Portucel’s growth. He started his career in a small law firm in Portugal, where he specialised in M&A after three years of practice. Following that, he worked at the largest law firm in Portugal, before moving to Jerónimo Martins, the largest retail company and leader in food distribution in Portugal. When he joined Jerónimo Martins, the company was facing some financial challenges. ‘I spent my first three or four years cleaning the house. We had to sell some companies in Brazil, Poland and Portugal and I was assisting the board and M&A team’. During his time in this role the legal team grew from a four-person- team to a 17-strong team excelling in all areas of practice. After 11 years at Jerónimo Martins he received an offer to head the legal department of Portucel, a leading force in the international pulp and paper market, one of Portugal’s strongest brands on the world stage with a turnover of €1.8bn, which is also a PSI-20 constituent. Currently the general counsel and company secretary, he handles the corporate relations with regulators and is in charge of all governance issues. Neto Alves organised the legal structure of the 60 group companies, which previously didn’t have a unified approach. He admits that was one the biggest challenges of his in-house career: ‘Portucel is the result of a merger of different companies and each of them had a different way of doing legal work. I had to develop a common mentality that the whole group would share’.