Maria João Carioca MBA’96D is co-CEO and CFO of Galp Energia, one of Portugal’s largest energy firms, with a turnover of around €20 billion a year and employing over 7,000 people. Back at the Europe Campus for her 30-year reunion in June 2026, she spoke to us about her career, leading an international energy firm, and what INSEAD means to her.
Returning to campus reminds Maria of why she came to INSEAD in the first place. “For me, INSEAD stands for quality – in teaching, thinking and people – and I still see it here today,” she says. Maria undertook an MBA thinking chiefly, she admits, of career advancement. But as soon as she arrived, she realised that INSEAD would be more than a line on her CV: “I instantly understood I was stepping into a diverse, worldly cohort; the setting was French, but INSEAD was a school of the world.”
For Maria, INSEAD’s international focus was the springboard to a stellar career. “I’ve always believed that people must put themselves out in the world, engage with people and ideas, and see that business is global.” And this has rung true for Maria’s own career: although she has always been based in Portugal, her work has been distinctly international.
After INSEAD, Maria worked in consulting and financial services, before taking up an executive position at Portugal’s biggest bank, Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) in 2013. She spent the next decade at the bank, playing a crucial role in steering CGD through the Portuguese banking crisis and eventually becoming CFO.
“I’ve never been afraid to experiment, to change role or sector,” Maria says. Accordingly, in 2023, she moved from banking to energy, joining Galp Energia as CFO and becoming co-CEO in 2025. “Leading Galp is as challenging as it is rewarding,” she says. Investors expect good returns, while decarbonisation and energy transition are absolute priorities. And today’s geopolitics make energy sovereignty an emerging focus. Behind all of this, Maria reminds us, is a basic purpose: providing heat and power to consumers.
Despite her years at the top of Portuguese business, Maria says she has never consciously “managed” her career. “I've always found circumstances that work for me, that achieve a balance between professional and personal life,” she says. This pragmatic approach extends into Maria’s thinking about diversity. She has never really felt that her gender has been an obstacle to success, she says. “I just own it: I'm a woman; I'm a professional. Executive work is about how we solve problems, how we manage our teams, how we see the future of the company: I don't see gender coming into any of that.”
Above all, Maria has a commitment to delivery with quality. And it is this that brings her back to INSEAD and her 30-year reunion. “The reunion is highly energising,” Maria says. “To be somewhere intellectually stimulating, forward-looking, and at the same time to be surrounded by friends, it’s incredibly valuable.”
