Maria Celeste Hagatong began her duties as Chairwoman of the COSEC Board of Directors in July 2017, having been a non-executive member of COSEC Board of Directors for the last 10 years, representing BPI. In parallel, in 2017 she became President of the Fundação Portugal África. She began her professional career at the Portuguese Ministry of Finance; she later joined BPI, where she worked for 33 years. In BPI, she worked in the Investment Bank; from 2002, she was a member of the Bank's Executive Board, being responsible for Corporate Banking and Project Finance. At BPI, she was responsible for launching and promoting COSEC's credit insurance in the Corporate Banking network, a project that was very important for the strengthening of COSEC’s position in the Portuguese market.
Thierry Etheve began his duties as COSEC Chief Executive Officer in 2015; from 2011 to that date, he had worked as COSEC’s Executive Director. He began his professional career in 1990, in the Euler Hermes Group, a shareholder of COSEC; until 2010, he had held various functions associated with credit risk management in France and Italy. In 2010, he became Head of Risk Underwriting in the MMEA region (the area comprising Italy, Greece, Portugal, Turkey, Morocco, the Middle East, Africa, and Israel) and, in parallel, he was a non-executive member of the Executive Committee of Euler Hermes Morocco. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics, from the University of Poitiers, and he also holds a Masters in Business Administration.
Ana Carvalho is Executive Member of COSEC Board of Directors, responsible of the Commercial and Marketing and Communication areas. Ana Carvalho, who in the last 10 years was Director of Business Development at BPI, has more than 20 years of professional experience in Banking, in the segment “business to business”. She began her career in the Business Direction of BPI and also integrated the Risk Capital team of this group. Graduated in Business Management, she also obtained an MBA from the Catholic University of Portugal and held a “Managers Program” at INSEAD. In this more than two decades of connection to the business segment, Ana Carvalho launched COTEC Portugal, joined the teams of partners of IAPMEI and Turismo de Portugal, which annually structure the PME Leader and PME Excellence programs, developed the National Agriculture Award in close partnership with its promoters, participated in the organization and launch of the first Portuguese “Private Equity” fund with European Investment Fund, among other initiatives. In her experience in the Corporate Business Development team he participated in the definition and implementation of the partnership strategies between BPI and COSEC regarding the placement of credit insurance in this Bank.
José Vairinhos began his duties as Executive Director of COSEC in 2015; previously, since 1982, he had been working with COSEC as Head of Risk Management. He started his professional career as a manager of a small service company; then, he began working at Correios e Telecomunicações de Portugal until joining COSEC. In parallel, he is a member of the ICISA Underwriters Sub-Committee and a representative of COSEC in the Central Credit Risk Monitoring Committee of the Bank of Portugal. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Organization and Business Management from ISCTE, and he has also completed a Financial Management course from CIFAG.
Paolo Cioni has been a Non-Executive Member of the COSEC Board of Directors since 2017, representing Euler Hermes, where he has held positions as Global Head of Risk Underwriting since 2015, when he was transferred from Euler Hermes Italy to the headquarters, in Paris. In addition, since 2010 he has worked as Regional Risk Director of the MMEA Region (the area comprising Italy, Greece, Portugal, Turkey, Morocco, Middle East, Africa, and Israel). He holds a bachelor’s degree in Information Technology from the G. Ferraris Technical Industrial Institute. He began his career as a project manager and consultant for multinational corporations at Eurodata Software S.p.A., and in 1991 he began his work in the credit insurance area of Euler Hermes Italy.
Pedro da Silva Fernandes has been a Non-Executive Member of the COSEC Board of Directors since 2017, representing BPI, where he serves as the Head of the Business Division - North. He is also a member of the Executive Committee on Credit Risks of the Credit Board and of the Rating Committee of Banco BPI. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Porto; he also holds a degree from the Executive Program from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and an MBA in Management from Georgia College & State University.
