Focus on: My career

Rui Ramalhal is 56 years old, married and the father of 4 daughters. Graduated from the Lisbon Faculty of Law of the Catholic University of Portugal in 1992, he completed his law internship at the then-named Vieira de Almeida e Associados, with Dr. Vasco Vieira de Almeida. At the end of the internship, he was invited to join the firm where he remained until October 2000. While a lawyer at Vieira de Almeida, he was responsible for the legal department of Banco Mello de Investimentos on a secondment basis.

At the end of 2000, he was challenged to set up the Portuguese office of Andersen Legal with five more lawyers. Between 2001 and 2002, he completed a postgraduate course in Land Planning, Urbanism and Environmental Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra and between 2003 and 2009 he taught Corporate Law in several executive MBAs at the Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa.

In December 2003, he was invited by the José de Mello Group to assume the role of legal director of the then-named José de Mello Saúde, currently CUF, where he remained until the end of 2022. There were 19 challenging years, where he actively participated in an ambitious project of organic growth and via acquisitions, of a business group that is today a leader in its sector with a turnover of more than 600M€.

In January 2023, he began his duties as legal director at José de Mello Capital, the holding company of the José de Mello Group, a position he currently holds.

He is passionate about physical activity, having done several marathons, and water sports, regularly practicing swimming, including open water, and diving.