Mentoring
People come to me with a surface problem. A CV that isn't landing. An interview they can't crack. A promotion they're not getting. A team they don't know how to lead.
Within the first conversation, we usually find the real problem underneath. It's almost never what they thought it was.
The real problem is usually about identity: who you believe you are, what you think you're allowed to want, and whether you trust yourself enough to stand for it. Everything else, the CV, the pitch, the stakeholder conflict, is a symptom.
What happens
The reluctant leader
A product designer at a tech company, unsure whether to accept a leadership role after senior design leadership left. Anxious, questioning her own authority, waiting for someone to give her permission to lead.
Over eight sessions, she stopped waiting. She led her team through a full organisational restructuring, managed layoffs with composure, and updated her title to Head of Design. Her team, including those who were let go, thanked her.
By the end, she wasn't a mentee anymore. She was a peer.
"He does not just tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to hear, always in a very thoughtful and supportive way. His insights helped me see my challenges from a much deeper perspective."
Kim, Germany
The self-saboteur
A mid-career UX designer who had pivoted from business analytics, displaced by war, carrying deep imposter syndrome. In interviews she would actively downplay her abilities. She once told a recruiter she had never built a design system when it was on her CV. She defaulted to "sweet mode," over-talked when nervous, drifted eye contact. Real opportunities slipped away.
Over four sessions, she named her own self-sabotage patterns in real time. She identified her core differentiator: an analytical, structured brain combined with strong visual instincts. She stopped treating her CV as a confession and started treating it as a strategic instrument.
She moved from processing to building. For the first time, she asked for homework.
"Paulo is great at cutting through the noise and providing the solution to the real problem at hand. I came to the session with three different issues, and Paulo managed to understand the real problem, provide specific recommendations and reframe the way I approached professional self-presentation."
Sasha, Netherlands
The career compounder
A service designer navigating career anxiety, portfolio struggles, and uncertainty in a new leadership role. Over fifteen sessions across eleven months, she navigated onboarding, stakeholder engagement, and team leadership. When she was laid off, she processed it with composure and a plan.
She identified her play-win intersection in tech. She reactivated public speaking as a strength. She evolved from someone asking for direction to someone giving it.
The longest mentoring arc I've had. By the end, she was advising me on my own practice.
How I work
I don't follow a coaching framework. I don't have a five-step method or a workbook. What I have is 25 years of pattern recognition across design, engineering, data, and leadership, and a way of showing up in a conversation that makes most people tell the truth faster than they expected to.
Most mentors operate on one level. They'll help you fix your CV or prepare for an interview. That's useful, and I do it. But it's rarely the real work.
I work across three layers simultaneously.
Tactical
CV, portfolio, interview preparation, stakeholder communication. The surface-level problems you came with. I handle these, but rarely stop here.
Strategic
Career positioning, organisational influence, how to read a room, how to build a point of view that travels. Where most people actually need help.
Identity
Who you are, who you're becoming, what you believe about yourself. This is where the transformation happens. Everything else follows from here.
I'm direct. Sometimes uncomfortably so. But directness only works if the person across from me knows I'm genuinely invested in them. Brutal honesty wrapped in care, as one mentee put it. I also model what I teach: I share my own doubts, my own failures, my own current struggles. This isn't performance. It's how trust gets built between two adults.
"Paulo doesn't do surface-level feedback. He helps you understand not just what to improve, but how to think differently. True 'teach me to fish' mentorship that transforms your perspective."
Laila, Egypt
Who this is for
You're smart and capable, but something isn't clicking. Maybe you're in transition and can't articulate what you bring. Maybe you've been promoted into leadership and aren't sure you belong there. Maybe you know you're good but the opportunities don't seem to reflect it.
I work with designers, engineers, product managers, founders, and people leaders. The title matters less than the pattern: you've stopped trusting yourself somewhere along the way, and the surface problem you want to fix is not the real problem.
21 mentees across 9 countries and 4 continents. The method works wherever the person is willing to be honest.
"He said some things that others don't dare to say. If you really want to improve your idea and are looking for good feedback, talk to Paulo and be ready for hard questions."
Bagher, Iran
How it works
One-off individual sessions
€85
45 to 60 minutes, one-to-one. For a specific challenge, a second opinion, or when you already know what you need help with. No commitment beyond the conversation.
One session is often enough to crack open the real problem. Some people come back for more. Some don't need to.
Structured programme
€75/session
A block of sessions with a clear focus: career identity, job search, leadership transition, value proposition development. We agree on the scope together and work through it at a pace that makes sense. Typically 4 to 8 sessions over one to three months.
Programmes are shaped around what you need, not a fixed template.
Continuous support
€450/month
Up to 4 sessions per month, plus ongoing mentoring between them. Includes access to the private mentoring platform with tools built specifically for this work: professional identity profiling, value proposition development, CV and portfolio expert reviews, and role-fit assessments for job applications. Continuous support when you need a second brain.
Extra sessions beyond the 4 included are billed at the one-off session rate.
"Paulo has given me the confidence to believe in myself. His experience has helped me shape my CV into something that reflects who I am and what I have to give to the industry. His continued mentorship and support is something that is very rare in the world we live in."
Evin, United Kingdom
The work starts with one conversation.
Not sure yet? Start with a free 30-minute exploratory call. No commitment, no pitch. Just a conversation to see if this is the right fit.