Chief Change Officer - Media and Entertainment Mogul Turned Legacy Architect, César Couto Ferreira: I Build People, not Products

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

Can a philosopher's heart and a commercial executive's mind coexist for the greater good? Ask César, a former DJ, MTV and Vice Media executive, and champion at the Web Summit in Lisbon. When you're enveloped in a world of bubble-like glamour, man-made fame, grand titles, and substantial paychecks, it feels too comfortable to make even the slightest move. That's a push factor. However, don't overlook the pull factor: a vision on the horizon, a voice that is uniquely yours, your own intellectual property, your legacy, your trademarks. Career Change Master: César Couto Ferreira César, now based in Porto, initially dazzled as a DJ and TV presenter before sculpting a prominent executive career at MTV Networks, a pillar of global youth entertainment within Viacom's portfolio. In the midst of the industry's pivotal shift from analog to digital media, he led the charge in launching operations across Portugal, Italy, and Greece, working alongside music legends such as MADONNA, COLDPLAY, R.E.M., and AMY WINEHOUSE. After his impactful tenure at MTV, César took the reins as General Manager at Vice Media in Portugal. He later took a creative leap from SABSEG to Brazil, where he co-founded Fabrica de Futuro, pioneering new frontiers in media. Currently, César is involved in business development at olio.is and Streamhub, continuing to influence the changing media landscape. Episode Breakdown: 1:49 — Turning Tables: From Biotech Major to DJ at 23: Finding my rhythm in radio. 3:34 — Dream Job Manifested: From MTV Enthusiast to Europe’s Youngest Programming Manager. 4:48 — MTV Odyssey: A 9-Year Tour from Portugal to Greece 6:21 — Rein in Digital Sovereignty: Creating and Owning Your Intellectual Property 8:50 — Moment of Clarity: Amy Winehouse's Death Inspires a Jerry Maguire Moment. Insights from a career-defining realization. 12:51 — The Illusion of Glamour: The Realities of Working in Media and Entertainment. 14:22 — Renaissance at the Web Summit: Fueling Portugal’s Legacy with Global Talent. 21:47 — Beyond the Hype: Reading Curiously in an Age of Social Media Noise. Connect with Us: Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Cesar Couto Ferreira Chief Change Officer: Make Change Ambitiously. A Modernist Community for Growth Progressives World's Number One Career Podcast Top 1: US, CA, MX, IE, HU, AT, CH, FI Top 10: GB, FR, SE, DE, TR, IT, ES Top 10: IN, JP, SG, AU  1.3 Million+ Streams 50+ Countries

Hi everyone, welcome to the show, Chief Change Officer. I'm your host, Vince Chen. Today's guest is Cecil Coutu Ferreira from Portugal, a beautiful, beautiful country I visited a few years ago to join the Web Summit in Lisbon as a guest and a speaker. The people are warm, the food is great, the sea and the sky are so blue. I surely want to go back. This episode is like a real-life version of the popular HBO TV series, Secession. I'm sure many of you watched the show. It's not just about a secession war for the top job of CEO

who was in a super wealthy and powerful family, but also above the wall in old media versus new media and tech. A succession from old money to new money. Since the beginning of the century, Cecil has been involved in this transformation from analog to digital media. From a DJ and TV presenter to an MTV Networks executive, working with Madonna and all the music stars. He's seen the bright and the dark sides of 21st century media and entertainment. Without further ado, let's get into the room. When I was a kid, I was always keen for biology, for science. And I went to the biotech. And I had the opportunity to do this scholarship.

And I went to France. I was an high-performance athlete when I was 19. And this is obviously the passion of my life. But I had a family that was in media all my family from my mom's side basically they were working in media radio philosophers they were thinkers basically very creative people and my brain in a way was divided I've always wanted for the logical side of things but my dna let's put it like this my genetics and my environment was pushing me to arts and to be creative there was a time that i finished my graduation and i thought okay i'm gonna do biotech and i'm gonna work with wine i'm gonna do everything i dream of

but my passion was radio and this is really good because we're doing a podcast, so this for me is really nice. So radio just was craving for me. It was calling me. And my dreams, obviously, was resonating. And I had this amazing opportunity to become a radio DJ. Wow. Quite early in my life. And I was studying at the same time and doing radio at the same time and I finished

my grad and suddenly someone asked me and this is really funny because it was I was having this coffee conversation and someone was listening to me and say are you that guy and I said yeah and said do you want to work for my radio could be the radio manager I was 23 years old and I became a radio manager. Then I accepted and I was quite successful. And then television came. I just became this TV host for a local TV channel. In the very brief moment of my life, in three, four years, my dream come true. I always said I wanted to work for MTV. I was always watching MTV when I was a kid. Then I was always saying, one day I'm going to work on MTV. But I never thought that was possible.

Because this is a channel in the US. I never felt that they were going to come to Europe. I never felt they were going to come to Portugal. And I never felt I was going to get out of Portugal. I'm 49. This is almost like 22 years ago. And it happened. Suddenly, I got into MTV.

I signed a deal with them. They launched MTV Portugal. And in 2003, I just moved to London. And everything was new to me. And this is the first step for me to discover the world by myself in this big company. And I was the youngest programming manager in Europe. And suddenly I was working with my idol. I was surrounded by them.

I have daily conversations with them. I was seen by Euro artists, people that I really love. After two weeks in London, I was sitting down in coffee places and bars and clubs and hanging around with people that I admire and this is a transformation for me this is the transformation that I embraced for nine years almost at MTV and I started with MTV Portugal then I launched MTV Bessafric as a mentor I moved to MTV Italy. I launched MTV Greece, was the first license in Europe, first full HD channel for MTV Europe. And that was crazy. And I said, I re-am last concert in Europe, 70,000 people to do the EMAs in Lisbon, 2005, you know, 1 billion people streaming and watching it.

We already go into the direction of streaming. I think we're looking at something much, much bigger than just a personal transformation. Your three-minute career story is not only your own evolution, but also a pivotal shift in the entire media and entertainment industry, from the analog world to the digital and social media age.

With MTV, I'm happy with that. I know that I did a good job. I had an influence. And when you work with a global brand that has such a huge voice, you're going to do good. If you want to do good. And I did a good thing. So I'm really happy for that.

And it's really easy to work in a global brand. It's so easy because things come to you. You just have to say, I work for MTV and everything's good. Everybody opens their doors. Then comes the failure part of things. Digital is not performing well for us. And I think the future is in the digital world. And I knew

Shane Smith from Vice and I know the guys, the founders from Vice at the time. And I saw what they're doing in a very narcissistic way. And I moved to Vice

because it was the CNN of the streets as the claim said it at the time. And WPPE was on board. Everyone was on board. They were doing an amazing job at the time.

So I moved to VICE. And from that on, I just decided, okay, I'm going to embrace technology. And I'm going to embrace innovation. I was already working in tech since 2009. But I couldn't tell anyone. I had a sidekick. I had a friend of mine that was the founder also of this company. And we were just doing projects on the sideline just for fun.

It was a fun business at the time for me, but I was in love by tech. When you work with a multinational global love brand, your IP, your intelligence belongs to them. You sign a waiver. It's normal. Yeah. You just find that everything that you create belongs to that. You sign a waiver, it's normal. You just find that everything that you create belongs to them. One thing I surely appreciate, and I think you'll echo this, is that working in big corporations,

no matter the industry, can be an incredible training ground. the opportunities are massive with a powerful brand lending prestige to your resume. But at the end of the day, much of what you work on isn't really your own intellectual property. With that in mind, and considering you've moved on back then, I'm curious about your thought process behind this decision. The reason I'm asking is that many of us, as we develop our career paths, face moments that are either expected or completely out of the blue. Each decision, each transition, I believe, is a delicate balance between logic and psychology. You mentioned earlier that

while you are trained in science with a very logical mind, you're also very into art, into creative work, into philosophy. So back then, how did you navigate this balance when making career decisions? Now that's a really good question. And this is what politics say

when they want to think about that question. I'm going to just think about that question. Definitely transformation never ends. We know that. Transformation never ends. what was the x factor what was the moment that really made me change i knew that i was a creative person i always suffer from imposter syndrome it's normal i need to change and the industry was a little bit sick at the time and that was an episode in my life and a lot of people don't know about this but obviously when

i moved to london i was living in camden town camden town is surrounded by artists it's where everyone is from rickie gervais to amy winehouse everyone is there and i was too immersed by them and i met them and when i saw and I was one of the first people to introduce Amy Winehouse to 10 people in London, in the networks. Before she recorded Frank, I was listening to her songs. I was hanging around. I knew a lot of her people. We were going to the same pub, Camden. We were almost neighbors. I lived in the same street as Coldplay. And I was like, damn, this is wrong.

This is definitely wrong. We're not doing the best we can for the people and we're not helping really creative and intelligent people like Amy Winehouse. She was one of the most beautiful people I've met. She was such a creative and talented singer.

And I saw what the industry was doing to her. Because she was in the wrong place with the wrong people. A lot of people, obviously, if you go and read about Amy, you're going to see the documentaries, you're going to see their bio, you're going to find out she had super anorexia when she was quite young. And that's the thing, we don't care about people.

We just want to do the profitable way. And at the time, it was her that. And I was in the beach when someone called me. I was still working for MTV, obviously. And someone calls me. Same feeling that I felt when they called me saying, look, Amy just died. I felt like when I was woke up at 5 a.m. with Michael Jackson saying, Michael Jackson just died. What are we going to do?

This is what happens when we prepare ourselves for them. When you work in the networks, you prepare yourselves. You discuss your obituary in the beginning of the year. And this is really bad. But this is the truth. This is newsflash. So we prepare the ob pituary and we think, okay, who's going to die this year?

Who are the ones that are going to mentally go down the drain? And when Amy died, because I was close by and I knew her and everything, that was something that I said, no, enough is enough. I don't want to be more. I don't want to be part of this. I want to change that.

It was quite decisive to say, look, we need to change things. And I just wanted to change things, basically. Your experience reminds me of the movie Jerry Maguire. Have you seen it yourself? Your work was essentially a people-first industry. Yet, oftentimes, these very people are treated more like products. And when you truly care about individuals as real humans with lives, worries, emotions, and inevitable endpoints, it changes everything. Once you delve into the business aspects,

as well as the personal connections with these individuals you interact with daily, it creates a profound internal conflict. I think of it as a struggle between two mindsets. Or the usual saying, drama is the reality. Reality is the drama. It's crazy because I always say to people, reality is much way, way stranger than fiction. The way people come to me and say, hey, how is it working with Viacom and all that section? People think, oh, come on, this is like Media Moguls, Game of Thrones. It's amazing. You've been there.

It's chill, man. It's not like that. It's not like that. Obviously, there's a lot of things that are inspired in real life. But real life is going to be much more complicated. It's going to be real. It's not science. It's not fiction.

Sorry. So when I think about these people, and when I think about the person that inspired Jeremy Maguire, they are so kind, so humble, full of knowledge. This is what I learned from them. And they are artists of change. And they know that nothing lasts forever. They know that.

Artists of change, yes. Change is an art more than a science. You work in a media industry. it's always about the glamour, you travel to all those places, parties, stores. Yeah, I fly to the hotel all the time. Yeah, all the time. Exactly. They punk your ego all the time.

But if you want to be a pioneer, you're going to face the wall. I think we discussed this. Yeah, the wall is right there. You don't need to... It's just right there. Exactly. It's like when you're the first person in the world to do something,

you're touching the wall. It's not like I'm not gonna face the wall. I'm touching the wall and I'm trying to understand the texture of the wall and how I can grasp between the branches of the wall. You've told me before

that you're all in for building a legacy. After experiencing the highs and lows of the media and entertainment industry, you've gone on to build ventures and venture ecosystem in Brazil and back home in Portugal. A key highlight, I believe, has been your involvement with the Web Summit in Lisbon. While Patti Cosworth might be the face and voice of the summit, you've played a crucial role at a national level,

influencing the government to take a leap of faith in integrating tourism with technology. Share with us your involvement in bringing this major event to the forefront. And looking at the bigger picture, what kind of legacy are you aiming to build that makes you proud? I'm a designer for society. That's what I did. Why did it happen and how did it happen? And I need to go back a little bit because Portugal was such a small country, such a small country, and we were an advanced country.

As I see it, and from my own experience. In 1998, Portugal did the Expo. And that changed Lisbon, changed the perception. We understood the rules. We understand how to create huge events. After that, 2004, we had the Euro Cup. Again, a lot of tourism coming by. A lot of people come to Portugal. People, they saw something, some paradise.

And then 2005, this is my moment. This is when I feel that I had something to do with this. Because we have the European Music Awards. European Music Awards in Portugal. And this is Lisbon, come on, 2005. And we had everyone. We had Madonna, Coldplay, Robin Williams. We had Borat as the host of the EMAs. And we were live for one billion

people. And Madonna came to Portugal and she fell in love by Portugal. And she started living in Portugal. And suddenly started living in Portugal. And suddenly, Portugal just comes in the map. It was a process to go to the Web Summit.

And I said before, we need to follow the Irish portal. The Web Summit was born in Dublin. Paddy was the guy and was the girl. Now he's not the CEO, but he still owns the company. And Paddy, he made a deal with the government, with the prime minister,

at the time with everyone that was involved in innovation, but in the tourism of Portugal. And they were able to brought the Web Summit, that at the time was considered the biggest tech event in the world. We work along with the government, we work along with the Secretary of Innovation, and meetings in Brazil with ministers.

For me, that was when you're working with a country that has 220 million people and needs to be helped and needs transformation. That is unbelievable. And connecting the dots here, the Web Summit, when Porto Alegre, they called me and said look we want to apply to be a host city to the web summit this was like last minute and immediately i called and i overrun the vp of portugal i overrun it because i knew the global media partnerships of the web summit and i call her and said look portal leg wants to run for the Web Summit. But suddenly, there were 70,000 people coming. It's crazy.

And then I'm going to mention Philip Stark. Don't let me go without Philip Stark mentioning this. One of the biggest designers in the world, he lives in Portugal. There's a reason why we are the most secure country in the continent. I think we're the third right now in the world. I think we're behind Iceland and New Zealand. Our confidence is changing and we learn the empathy and compassion to embrace other people. And Philip Stark was saying this, I don't even want to work in Portugal because I don't want

to destroy my paradise. And this was such a loving, caring way of saying this. Obviously, I'm not stupid because we are a very aged country. We are surrounded by really old people, very knowledgeable, but we need younger generation. We're not able to have kids. And so basically for us, migration, it's natural. We have the biggest community of brazilians is obviously in portugal due to the language the second biggest one it's ukraine creating people and it's not because of the war because they already been here and they help the country to develop the same way what happened with migration in u US in the past, with all the brains from Germany

to Jewish going to the US and bringing knowledge, bringing so much knowledge, capital, human capital and financial capital, of course, but both, you have to have both elements in order for the economy to grow, to develop. It actually is the golden rule. It actually is a timeless golden rule. And there's no fast solutions. We know that in every kind of business, there's no fast solutions.

I would love for us to be Sweden. I was in the ecosystem in Stockholm and they are unbelievable. But they do. There are 4.5 million people, if I'm not wrong in sweden and their gdp is crazy that level of literacy on every level it's unbelievable so for me we're not still in that process at all it's a long way to go but when i do mentorship

and i when i see people and I see the talent that we're developing and learning from others, because so much good people from other countries, from other continents are coming to Portugal and bringing so much experience, so much talent, so much knowledge that we're evolving. Yesterday, I saw a young CEO. She was 27 years old. She started her startup when she was 24. I was amazed by her knowledge. I was amazed by her focus. She was laser focused, major laser focused. And she was not born in Lisbon. She was not born in Oporto. I think I was in Albeiro or something like that. But the level of knowledge that she owns, it's crazy. She was 27 years old. I wanted to be her, honestly. I was listening to her and I was seeing what she was saying. I was like,

damn, you're really good. And I'm really happy for that. When you ask me what is my driven, it's all about legacy. I gave an interview once and in the middle, because I don't prepare myself for anything of this. I just go with flow. It's my way of working because I like to be like this. Last question of the day. As a former media executive,

what advice would you give to people who are deeply immersed in social media? People need to read books, people need to work, people need to... and right now everything's quite fast, the fear of missing out, and there's a lot of hype. I always say to people, don't believe the hype, don't be blinded by the lights. This is all media and creative cliches, but it's true. Go with the curiosity mind. Just go with this mindset. If you're doing that, it's already amazing because you learn so much. You're going to learn so much. If anything like a hot topic is going to tell you, okay, let's try to understand

crispy additions or let's go to understand a little bit about. Thank you so much for your wise words and of course your time. That's all for now. Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Vince Chan. Follow us if you like our episode. Subscribe, inspire, and thrive. See you next time. Thank you.