Eduardo Pádua. Based in The Hague, working across Europe and Latin America, with a growing focus on Portuguese-speaking Africa.
From design to delivery
I bring governments, companies, funders and international organisations together around large-scale public challenges, and take the solution all the way to the people it is meant to serve.
Student places delivered through Brazil's vocational education reform, across three states
Students in Rio de Janeiro's school network, reorganised with 19 city agencies
New day-care places, under one protocol across health, social care and education
In government, the private sector, and with UNICEF, UNESCO, the World Bank and the IDB
No single organisation can solve it alone.
Complex public problems need many institutions and many perspectives, and each brings its own culture, language and interests. My work is to bring the right actors to the table, align them around a common goal, and design a solution in which every one of them gains, above all the people it serves.
Understand the problem, not just the target
Every solution starts from the people who need it, the territory where they live, and how people and institutions actually work.
Bring the right actors together
Governments, companies, funders and international organisations, aligned around a common goal and a shared language.
Design so every actor gains
Projects last when each party sees its own benefit in them, from the agency to the funder to the leaders who champion them.
Deliver at scale
Pragmatic about what it takes to make things work. I design what can be delivered, and then I deliver it.
Where the work happens.
Education reform
System-wide change, from network planning to implementation.
Vocational education and apprenticeships
Skills systems built with employers, including public-private partnerships.
Digital government
Data, technology and AI applied to public services and public budgets.
Digital health
Partnerships between governments and providers to widen access to care.
Capacity building
Governance and management models that public institutions keep using.
Public-private partnerships
Arrangements in which public goals and private capacity reinforce each other.
Selected work
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Vocational education reform, delivered through public-private partnerships
Designed and led the public-sector business of a vocational education company implementing Brazil's secondary and vocational reform with Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Mato Grosso do Sul.
50,000+ student places and R$ 160 million in government contracts -
Full-day schools for a city of 600,000 students
Designed the zoning and demand model and aligned 19 city agencies and the state behind a R$ 4 billion programme, planning schools together with housing, health and transport.
227,000 full-day places, around 300 new units, 1,500 schools reorganised -
Early childhood: from a number to a system
The target was to double day-care places. With the President's Office, economist Ricardo Paes de Barros and World Bank support, it became developmental screening for every child, priority for the most vulnerable, and one protocol from pregnancy to age six.
30,000 new day-care places, capacity doubled -
Governance first
As Secretary of Planning and Management, I read the local context, identified governance as the binding constraint and redesigned the city's management model before anything else.
A weekly management routine with the mayor, still in use today
About
For over twenty years I have worked where public systems, capital and people meet: at Rio de Janeiro's Secretariat of Education, in the private sector, and with UNICEF, UNESCO, the World Bank and the IDB.
Since 2021 I have lived in The Hague. I work as an advisor, board member and, increasingly, a partner in ventures that bring technology and institutional design to public challenges, including in AI and digital health.
Harvard Kennedy School, Columbia University and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. I work in Portuguese, English and Spanish, and I am learning Dutch.
Let's talk
Working on education, skills, digital government or digital health, or looking to work with governments in Latin America or Africa? I would be glad to hear what you are working on.