Research recognized internationally

As Research Affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) — System Design and Management, I lead research on R&D management in technology-intensive sectors. I investigate how organizations build, govern and adopt the models and practices needed to run projects that span basic science through to complex applications in engineering.

My work focuses on the strategic, organizational and operational challenges that determine R&D performance, from the management of technology and innovation portfolios to cross-functional collaboration and the running of complex development initiatives. I pay particular attention to how companies align technology, execution and strategy to generate long-term value.

Working at the intersection of science, management and practice, I develop insights and strategic recommendations grounded in rigorous research on how organizations raise their innovation performance, manage uncertainty, structure decision-making and design operating models that are more adaptable and better prepared for the future.

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT-CEPE), I conducted advanced studies on strategic themes such as business agility, technology and innovation management, organizational transformation, hybrid management models, program management and systems engineering.

In that leading-edge environment I became one of the first researchers to apply an framework organizational agility framework at global scale, a pioneering initiative that took shape as one of the first large-scale studies to assess agility across multiple industry sectors. With more than 800 participants from 76 countries, the study filled a critical gap in empirical evidence: how organizations were developing agility as a competency, and how that competency translated into business results.

From that mapping I identified the emerging trend of hybrid management models and established the scientific and practical foundation for large corporations to scale agility efficiently and sustainably. This body of knowledge was consolidated in the book Hibridismo – A Evolução dos Modelos de Gestão para Agilidade nos Negócios, today a reference in the field.

In parallel I took on the leadership of the Program Management and Systems Engineering initiative, a project funded by the Project Management Institute (PMI) in collaboration with the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). The results of that cooperation were published by Wiley & Sons in 2017 under the title Integrating Program Management and Systems Engineering. As co-author and co-editor of the work, and with the central model of the book developed under my leadership, I helped establish a milestone in interdisciplinary integration, bringing together two fields of knowledge that until then operated in isolation and that today constitute foundational literature for the development of large, complex programs.

Developed to the highest international academic standard and validated in business practice, this set of initiatives generated impact in organizations of different sizes and sectors around the world, consolidating my international recognition as a thought leader (thought leader) in these fields. It is this body of knowledge that underpins the solutions I offer companies today: advanced assessments and operational intelligence, organizational agility models, hybrid management models, transformation programs and innovation governance, executive advisory to leadership teams and boards, and keynotes and training courses for teams and executives.

The PhD at the University of São Paulo (São Carlos School of Engineering) was the founding milestone of my research path. It was there that I positioned myself at the frontier of knowledge in R&D management, strategy and technology, transformation and business agility, fields that would define my professional work in the years that followed.

My thesis, titled A framework and tool for project management agility assessment, was pioneering in defining and scientifically measuring agility, establishing the conceptual foundations and the instruments to assess it with methodological rigour.

The scientific robustness of the work earned international recognition. I was awarded the Emerging Economies Young Researcher Award (EEYRA), granted by the United States-based Production & Operations Management Society (POMS), and I became the first Brazilian to receive the Dr. Harold Kerzner Research Grant, a respected research grant in the field, sponsored by the International Institute for Learning (IIL) and the educational foundation of the Project Management Institute (PMIEF).

Beyond the awards, the research produced reference publications. The methodological advance in measuring agility resulted in a prominent publication in the International Journal of Project Management (IJPM). The article Agile Project Management and Stage-Gate Model – A Hybrid Framework for Technology-based Companiesthat followed, published in the Journal of Engineering and Technology Management (JET-M)integrated the approach and concepts of agile management with the stage-gate model in a hybrid framework for technology-based companies and, from 2016 onward, ranked for consecutive years among the five most downloaded publications in the journal by professionals and researchers worldwide.

In the same period I published the book Gerenciamento Ágil de Projetos: Aplicação em Produtos Inovadores (Saraiva, 2011), which quickly became essential reading for companies and product development professionals across different industry sectors.

Validated in practice and recognized by peers, this set of contributions consolidated my international standing and led to the invitation to the post-doctorate at MIT, where the study of agility begun during the PhD would be expanded to global scale.

It was during the master’s in Production Engineering, with an emphasis on operations management and product development, at the São Carlos School of Engineering (EESC-USP), that I laid the foundations of my professional path. The decision was deliberate: I left a stable position at an American technology multinational to devote myself to research and business advisory.

I developed a pioneering dissertation, titled Agile project management: proposal and evaluation of a method for scope and time management, in which I proposed and evaluated an original method for scope and time management in new product development projects. From that work came the IVPM2 – Iterative and Visual Project Management Method, um framework hybrid framework for innovation which, even in its early stages, anticipated the logic of integrating management practices from different approaches, a concept that years later would establish itself as one of the dominant approaches in project management worldwide.

The scientific robustness of this research earned early and significant international recognition. In 2008 I won the James R. Snyder International Student Paper of the Year Award, granted by the educational foundation of the Project Management Institute (PMIEF), becoming the first Brazilian recognized by PMI and PMIEF for research in agile project management. The following year I repeated the feat with the International Project Management Association (IPMA), as the first Brazilian recognized by the association in the field of agile management, with the Young Researcher Honour – Outstanding Research Contribution (2009). Both awards came before agility became widely popular in project management, from 2010 onward, which gives this work a genuinely pioneering character.

These milestones were also celebrated at home: the leadership of EESC-USP formally honoured both achievements, the PMIEF award in 2008 and the IPMA award in 2009, recognizing them as reference points for the São Carlos School of Engineering.

It was on this foundation, with advanced and innovative studies and international recognition still early in my path in these fields, that my whole repertoire was built: the scientific depth of the PhD, the expansion to global scale in the post-doctorate at MIT and the research and advisory practice I lead to this day, helping professionals and organizations across different sectors around the world.