Ruben Fernandes is the Executive Board Member of the municipal company Águas e Energia do
Porto EM. He oversees the areas of water supply, urban drainage, energy, asset management
and engineering, customer management, information systems, sustainability and
communication, strategic planning, and governance & compliance. He is also an Invited Assistant
Professor at the School of Economics and Management of the University of Porto. Previously he
was the Coordinator of the Regional Dynamics Monitoring Unit at CCDR-N (Norte Regional
Coordination and Development Commission) – a regional body of the Portuguese Government
tasked with implementing regional policies in the Northern Region of Portugal. To date, he has
been involved in several projects covering topics related to spatial planning and development,
urban metabolism, circular economy, environmental impact assessment, urban regeneration,
transport planning, just to name a few. He got his master’s degree in economics and his
doctorate degree in Civil Engineering, both at the University of Porto.