Ricardo Viana Vargas, Ph.D.

About

I have spent 32 years turning ideas into delivery, directing projects worth more than $20 billion across industries and continents.Today my work centers on what artificial intelligence is doing to that discipline. I co-authored the HBR article "How AI Will Transform Project Management," among the world's most-read for nine weeks, and I co-founded the AI-Driven Project Management Revolution, whose AIPM certification is delivered in six languages. I teach Project Management in Artificial Intelligence at IE University, and Artificial Intelligence for board members at the Brazilian Institute of Corporate Governance (IBGC), where I am also a certified board member (CCA).Teaching is the part I would not give up. More than 420,000 people have gone through my courses and programs, including 24 LinkedIn Learning courses. I have written 17 books, translated into seven languages, with over half a million copies sold, and 44 articles for Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review and LSE Business Review. I have delivered 250 keynotes in 45 countries. My "5 Minutes Podcast" has run since 2007 and passed 15 million views, my YouTube channel another 7 million, and Beyond Hype, my monthly newsletter here, reaches more than 50,000 readers.Through my online school I fund a scholarship program, matching every donation dollar for dollar. It has reached more than 230 students in 59 countries.I was the first Latin American Chairman of PMI worldwide and received the PMI Fellow Award, its highest recognition. From 2016 to 2020 I directed the Brightline Initiative, PMI's think tank on the gap between strategy design and delivery. Before that, at the United Nations (UNOPS) in Copenhagen, my team and I led more than 1,200 projects worth $1.2 billion across 122 countries: refugee camps, rural roads, maternity clinics, housing. That work brought the IPMA Achievement Award, and I produced the first sustainability report in the UN system to use the Global Reporting Initiative framework. I also wrote, as a volunteer, the treatment for "Zaatari: Memories of the Labyrinth," a documentary about a refugee camp in Jordan. began as an entrepreneur, co-founding AeC in Brazil; it employs 55,000 people today. I later founded Macrosolutions, working in energy, infrastructure, technology, oil and finance, and I sat on the advisory board of Yera, an Estonian startup applying AI to employee performance.Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering, B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering. I hold 30 international certifications and live in Lisbon.