The founder of the Frezite Group, José Manuel Fernandes, and former Mechanical Engineering student at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), is the winner of the FEUP 2024 Career Award. The award will be presented on 10 April at 5pm in the José Carlos Marques dos Santos Auditorium at FEUP.
José Manuel Fernandes founded FREZITE in 1978, a Portuguese multinational with companies in Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, the United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil, Finland and Mexico. The company was mainly dedicated to the manufacture of cutting equipment for wood and wood substitutes, but later evolved into a vast activity in different engineering sectors in response to opportunities in global markets: from wood to metals, including composite materials for sectors such as construction, automobiles and the aerospace industry. FREZITE has become one of the five most important European companies in ‘engineering for B2B’ in the manufacture of cutting tools, with a turnover of around 50 million euros. In 2017 it was honoured by the Portuguese Engineers’ Association as one of the 12 most emblematic engineering cases of the last eight decades in Portugal.
Born in Matosinhos, José Manuel Fernandes is currently president of the General Council of the Portuguese Business Association (AEP), but has been involved in the business association movement since 1980: CIP – Confederation of Portuguese Industry, AIMMAP – Association of Metallurgical, Metalworking and Related Industries of Portugal), AEBA – Baixo Ave Business Association.He was a member of the General and Supervisory Board of EDP and a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Porto, as well as a business consultant.
The author of several articles on political and business strategy in economic weeklies, as well as a lecturer who has given numerous speeches in Portugal and abroad, José Manuel Fernandes is the author of the book ‘Caminhos do Exportador – Estratégias de Empreendedorismo e Internacionalização’ (3rd edition).
With a degree in Mechanical Engineering (FEUP) and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Machinery from ISEP, he started working at the age of 14 in the capital goods and tradables industry.He later specialised in areas related to productivity, numerical control, investment management in a CNC environment at ADEPA in France and business management at CIFAG/IAPMEI.
José Manuel Fernandes succeeds João Oliveira Cortez (2023), António Mota (2022), Carlos Moreira da Silva (2021), João Serrenho (2020), António Segadães Madeira Tavares (2019) and Luís Valente de Oliveira (2018) as winner of the Career Award.