Francisca Carneiro Fernandes

Francisca Carneiro Fernandes was born in Porto, in 1972 and graduated in Law from Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Porto) in October 1995. After an internship as legal adviser in the Legal Services Department of the Bank of Portugal between January and May 1996, she choose to go back to the practice of commercial and companies law in one of the biggest Portuguese lawyer’s companies. She also did a graduate course in Communication Law at Universidade de Coimbra's Law School.

Later, in October 2002, she was appointed as subdirector of TNSJ - Teatro Nacional S. João, the national theatre located in Porto, and was responsible for its administrative and financial management. After the organization acquired the status of Public Company in May 2007, she was nominated member of the TNSJ Board of Directors and put in charge of its management planning branch, after doing a degree in financial management in a specialized business School (AESE). In March 2009, she became President of the TNSJ Board of Directors, a position she held until February 2018.

She is the president of "PERFORMART – Associação para as Artes Performativas em Portugal", an association of groups and companies that act in performing arts in Portugal, created in October 2015, and is a member of the General Council of University of Porto, since September 2017.