César Couto Ferreira
Appearances
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
And we had everyone. We had Madonna, Coldplay, Robin Williams. We had Borat as the host of that EMAs. And we had, we were live for 1 billion people. And Madonna came to Portugal and she fell in love by Portugal.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
And she 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, Paddy was the guy and was the girl. Now he's not the CEO, but he still owns the company.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
And Paddy, when 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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 PortoLeg, they called me and said, look, we want to apply to be a host city to the Web Summit.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 say, look, what do you like wants to run for the Web Summit? But suddenly there was 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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
One of the biggest design 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 the compassion to embrace other people.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
And so basically for us, migration, it's natural. We have the biggest, the biggest community of Brazilians is obviously Portugal, due to the language. The second biggest one, it's Ukraine. Ukrainian people. And it's not because of the war. It's because they've already been here. And they helped the country to develop. The same way what happened with migration in the U.S.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
in the past, with all the brains from Germany to Jewish going to the U.S. and bringing knowledge, bringing so much knowledge.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 what they do. There are 4.5 million people, if I'm not wrong, in Sweden. And their GDP is crazy. Their level of literacy on every level, it's unbelievable.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 focus, major laser focus. And she was not born in Lisbon. She was not born in Oporto. I think it was in Aveiro or something like that. But the level of knowledge that she owns, it's crazy. And she was 27 years old.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
I wanted to be her, honestly. I was listening to her and I was seeing what she was saying. And I was like, damn, you're really good. And I'm really happy for that. That's 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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
It's my way of working because I like to be like this.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 likes. This is all media and creative cliches, but it's true. Go with the curiosity mind. Just go with this mindset.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
If you're doing that, it's already amazing because you learned 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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 and radio.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 going to do biotech and I'm going to work with wine.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
I'm going to do it. 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 raving for me. It was calling me and my dreams obviously was resonating. And I had this amazing opportunity to become a radio DJ. Quite early in my life. And I was studying at the same time and doing radio at the same time.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
And I finished my grad and suddenly someone asked me, and this is really funny because I was having this coffee conversation. And someone was listening to me and saying, are you that guy? And I said, yeah. And he said, do you want to work for my radio? Can 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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
I just became this TV host for a local TV channel. In a very brief moment of my life, in three, four years, my dream come true. I always said that I wanted to work for MTV. I was always watching MTV when I was a kid. And I was honestly, I'm going to work one day. I'm going to work on MTV. But I never thought that was possible because this is a channel in the US.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 seeing my heroes, artists, people that I really love.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
It was the first licensee in Europe, first full HD channel for MTV Europe. And that was crazy. You know, it's a R.E.M. last concert in Europe, 70,000 people to do the EMAs in Lisbon, 2005, you know, 1 billion people streaming and watching it. See, we already go into the direction of streaming.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
With MTV, with Vice, 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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
You just have to say, I work for MTV and everything's good. Everybody opens your 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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
I had a friend of mine that was the founder also of this company, and we were just doing projects on the sidelines 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. You just find that everything that you create belongs to them.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
I need to change. And the industry was a little bit sick at the time. And there's 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 Ricky Gervais to Amy Winehouse, everyone is there. And I was being immersed by that. And I met them.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 in 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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
We're not doing the best we can for the people. And we're not helping really creative and intelligent people like Jamie Winehouse. She was one of the most beautiful people I know. 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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 suffered from 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 dad. And I was in the beach when someone called me.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 we're going to do? Because this is what happens, you know, when we prepare ourselves for them. When you work in the networks, you prepare yourselves.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
You discuss your pituary in the beginning of the year. And this is really bad. But this is the truth. This is newsflash. So we prepare the 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?
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
And when Amy died to me, because I was close by and I knew her and everything, that was something that I said, no, it's not 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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
It's crazy because I always say to people, reality is much way, way stranger than fiction. The way that we talk, the way people come to me and say, Hey, how is it working with Viacom and all that succession? 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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 Jerry Maguire, they are so kind and so humble, full of knowledge. This is what I learned from them. And they are artists of change.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
And they know that nothing lasts forever. They know that.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
Yeah, slash the hotel all the time. Exactly. They pump your ego all the time. But if you want to be a pioneer, you're going to face the wall.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 going to 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.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
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 event country. As I see it, and from my own experience, in 98, Portugal did the Expo and that changed Lisbon, changed the perception. We understood the rules.
Chief Change Officer
#210 César Couto Ferreira’s Next Act: From Madonna to Meaning
We understand how to create huge events. After that, 2004, we have 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.