Gonçalo Fortes

Goncalo Fortes is a regular tie guy! Actually, he's not that regular, because he usually wears ties when other people don't and doesn't use them when other guys have to. But whether he is wearing a tie or not, he means business. He founded Crazydog, a software house and IT consulting and innovation company, and PRODSMART, an industrial productivity startup with a web-based core business model. Both are located in Lisbon, Portugal.

He has studied Computer Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). He has worked, among others, with CENTRA – Multidisciplinary Center for Astrophysics (a research center at IST), with the Department of Mathematics at the Faculty of Science and Technology of Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and with several financial institutions (banks, insurance companies and brokers). This last group brought a specialization on pension funds and Asset-Liability Matching (ALM). To these meetings he wore a tie, but balanced it with ragged denim jeans and fashion sneakers.

He also actively investigates financial markets and algorithmic trading, especially foreign exchange, and business model innovation.

To complete the picture, he loves magic, comic books, theatre and, you probably have already guessed it... ties!

"What the heck?" – you may think - "That sh#@ makes my neck itchy and I can't breathe! What's there to be loved?". And the answer is that ties are the perfect combination between classical unusefulness and modern worthlessness. And is there something more appealing than things that you don't need?

Oh... and by "he", I mean "me". Welcome!