Alexandre Soares dos Santos was born in Porto in 1934 and died in Lisbon in August 2019. He attended the Lisbon Law Faculty and began working as a trainee manager at Unilever N.V. in 1957, having had internships in Germany and Ireland. This was the beginning of an international career at Unilever, which included working as Marketing Director for Unilever Brasil between 1964 and 1968. In 1968, he returned to Portugal to join the Board of Directors of Grupo Jerónimo Martins as Delegate-Director, before taking on the role of Chairman of the Executive Committee, which he held along with the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors from 1996 to 2013. He was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation until his death.