Henrique José de Sousa Neto (born 27 April 1936, in Lisbon) is a Portuguese

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

industrialist A business magnate, also known as an industrialist or tycoon, is a person who is a powerful entrepreneur and investor who controls, through personal enterprise ownership or a dominant shareholding position, a firm or industry whose goods or ser ...

and former member of the

Portuguese parliament The Assembly of the Republic (, ), commonly referred to as simply Parliament (), is the unicameral parliament of Portugal. According to the Constitution of Portugal, the parliament "is the representative assembly of all Portuguese citizens". Th ...

for the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...

. He founded the company Iberomoldes in 1975 and became one of the most noted businesspersons in the Portuguese engineering-related industry. Henrique Neto was the first candidate to step up for the

2016 Portuguese presidential election Presidential elections were held in Portugal on 24 January 2016. The elections were called after choose the successor to the incumbent President of Portugal, president Aníbal Cavaco Silva, who was Constitution of Portugal, constitutionally not a ...

Early life

Born in

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

on April 27, 1936, Neto studied at first in the Lisbon Industrial School and then at the Commercial School of

Marinha Grande Marinha Grande () is a municipality in the Leiria District, Portugal. The population in 2021 was 39,032, in an area of 187.25 km². The city itself has a population of 32,330. It is located right in the middle of the 700-year-old Leiria pine ...

, a town from where his family had come from to Lisbon and where he moved at age 14. He began working as a metal worker apprentice in a mold factory, where he became director and later owner.

Career

In 1975 he founded Iberomoldes, which would become in the following years the holding company of a group of twelve industrial companies and more than 1000 employees. It was from this group that SET was born, an engineering company especialized in innovative products development and IBEROLEFF in Pombal for the production and export of components for automotive and industrial companies. He sold his position in 2009 to a co-founder. Alongside its professional life in industry he also started very young in Portuguese politics and activism, influenced by his family environment which was not aligned with the Estado Novo regime. He was affiliated with the MUD youth (an anti-regime organization), and participated in anti-regime conferences, illegally reproduced documents at home and worked actively in the presidential campaign of General

Humberto Delgado Humberto da Silva Delgado (Portuguese pronunciation: �ˈbɛɾtu dɛɫˈɡadu 15 May 1906 – 13 February 1965) was a General of the Portuguese Air Force, diplomat and politician. Early life and military career Delgado was born in Brogueira, To ...

. In 1969 he was even arrested for a while due to these anti-regime activities. He joined the

Portuguese Communist Party The Portuguese Communist Party (, , PCP) is a Communism, communist and Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist List of political parties in Portugal, political party in Portugal. It is one of the strongest List of communist parties, communist par ...

in 1968 but left it in 1975, after the

Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution (), code-named Operation Historic Turn (), also known as the 25 April (), was a military coup by military officers that overthrew the Estado Novo government on 25 April 1974 in Portugal. The coup produced major socia ...

, in disagreement with the positions that were being taken, devoting himself thereafter only to business life. In 1993 Neto joined the

at the invitation of

Jorge Sampaio Jorge Fernando Branco de Sampaio (; 18 September 1939 – 10 September 2021) was a Portuguese lawyer and politician who was the 18th President of Portugal from 1996 to 2006. Sampaio was a member of the Socialist Party, a party which he ...

. He was elected to the Assembly of the Republic in 1995, and worked as a deputy until the end of his term in 1999. Henrique Neto was a candidate in the

, obtaining 0,84% of the vote. Henrique Neto became a fierce critic of the Socialist Party and of its leader (and Prime Minister of Portugal)

António Costa António Luís Santos da Costa (; born 17 July 1961) is a Portuguese lawyer and politician who has served as President of the European Council since 2024. He previously served as the 118th prime minister of Portugal from 2015 to 2024 and th ...

in the recent years; he rescinded his party membership in July 2017. He supported

Rui Rio Rui Fernando da Silva Rio (born 6 August 1957) is a Portuguese economist and retired politician of the Social Democratic Party (PSD). He was the Mayor of Porto from 2002 to 2013. Between 2018 and 2022, he was President of the PSD and Leader of ...

and the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

in the 2022 parliamentary elections and appeared in a rally in

Leiria Leiria () is a city and municipality in the Central Region, Portugal, Central Region of Portugal. It is the 2nd largest city in that same region, after Coimbra, with a municipality population of 128,640 (as of 2021) in an area of . It is the seat o ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Neto, Henrique Portuguese businesspeople Portuguese politicians 1936 births Businesspeople from Lisbon Living people