Technology and sustainability featured at QSP Summit 2022

The most important management and marketing conference in Europe, in its 15th edition, started, at the end of this Tuesday afternoon, at the Teatro Municipal do Porto – Rivoli. Until next Thursday, the organization expects the participation of more than three thousand people and more than 140 brands, present at Exponor, in Matosinhos.

At the opening, the councillor for Economy, Employment and Entrepreneurship, Ricardo Valente, immediately highlighted, the importance of this event both for the city and the region, praising the work of the CEO of the QSP Summit, Rui Ribeiro: “it has made a journey of sustained growth, with a huge capacity for resilience, reinvention and, above all, the aggregation of the players in the region around this event”.

Criticizing the absence of representatives of the Republic at the biggest event of its kind in Europe, Ricardo Valente stressed that “this year’s QSP Summit theme – ‘Building Sustainable Growth’ –is relevant to the city: building, sustaining, and growing are fundamental. It is easy to be sustainable without growth, or to be sustainable with negative growth. It is difficult is to be sustainable, building something, improving people’s lives, creating wealth and economic growth”, he stressed.

“Sustainability is the basis of all the current Municipality policies, whether from an environmental point of view, Plano Diretor Municipal (PDM), or tourism, mobility and, not least, the social issue. Today, Porto is the municipality that invests the most in housing policy, as a whole, it has a strategy for youth. Overall, we have a city that is prepared to build its future, settled on the logic of sustainability”, added the councillor for the Economy.

The president of the Municipal Assembly Sebastião Feyo Azevedo also attended the ceremony, and councillors of the Municipal Executive, local authorities of the region, and businessmen.

“We have to do more and better”, warns Horta-Osório

The CEO of the QSP Summit also criticized the lack of government support “to the most ambitious edition that we proposed to carry out, whether in terms of production, content, innovation. Despite the scarce resources, we have made what, in Porto, we call “tripas coração”.

“We will show, once again, that it is possible to do something relevant, unique for the region and the country, with a joint effort of many entities. We need the central power to look at the country as a whole”, acknowledges Rui Ribeiro.

The opening ceremony was attended by António Horta-Osório, a leading figure in the financial services industry for over 30 years, with a successful international financial career spanning asset management, investment, commercial and retail banking.

The current head of the board of directors of pharmaceutical Bial made an analysis of the recent years, in macroeconomic terms. Times marked by the pandemic and, more recently, by the war in Ukraine, with direct consequences on inflation, oil, and food prices. Referring, in this context, to our country’s situation, left a warning: “Our economic growth is weak and will continue to be weak. We have to do more and better”.

The ceremony, hosted by Sónia Araújo, began with a solo performance by the pianist Pedro Burmester, who played works by Schubert, Chopin and Bernardo Sassetti works.

The Management and Marketing conference takes place today and tomorrow, at Exponor. It has more than three thousand participants, 60 speakers, seven stages and 140 exhibitors (among them, highlights for Porto. stand).

The main speaker is Fareed Zakaria, CNN journalist, host of Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN Worldwide, columnist for The Washington Post and author of four award-winning New York Times bestsellers.

Other confirmed speakers are Jane Thomason (Kaisei Holdings), Rory Sutherland, vice-president of Ogilvy, Ben Hammersley (agathonic.ai), Sally Eaves (Forbes Technology Council), Tom Raftery (SAP), Delia García (L’Oréal), Ashley Fell (McCrindle), Markus Graf (Novartis), Alexander Kjerulf (Woohoo Inc.), Ko Koens (Inholland University of Applied Sciences), Karen Jones (Denison Consulting), Jodie Rogers (Symbia), Samuel Antunes (International Association of Coaching Psychology), Álvaro Fernandéz (Michael Page), Mariana Branquinho (Korn Ferry), José Miguel Leonardo (Randstad) and Isabel Barros (Sonae MC).

Check the entire QSP Summit 2022 program here.