This week we hosted David Alves. David operated across consumer goods, telco, and retail, with leadership roles at P&G and Optimus, and senior executive and board-level responsibilities at Sonae, one of Southern Europe’s largest retail groups.

At Sonae, he held CIO and commercial leadership roles across e-commerce, operations, and technology, with direct exposure to how large-scale retail systems are built and managed.

He now works as a board member, advisor, and angel investor through Core Angels Porto, where he focuses on founder selection, capital allocation, and how governance decisions translate into outcomes.

For many operators, the move out of execution looks natural.

You’ve built teams. Managed complexity. Delivered results.
The assumption is that this translates.

It rarely does, the environment changes speed increases, feedback loops shorten. Decisions carry different weight.

Inside a company, you own outcomes.

Outside, you influence them, that shift is underestimated.

This conversation with David Alves is not about career progression. It is about how value is created once you are no longer inside the machine. Operating experience gives you pattern recognition.It does not automatically give you timing, restraint, or precision in how you intervene.

That speed changes the nature of advice, ideas are not discussed, they are implemented.

And when they are misaligned, the cost is immediate,most boards and advisors still operate as if they are inside slower systems.They are not.

The transition from operator to advisor looks straightforward. The track record is there. The assumption follows. Experience should translate but it doesn’t.

Large organisations operate with buffers. Decisions move through layers. Time exists between intent and outcome. Mistakes are absorbed.

Smaller environments remove that protection.

Ideas are implemented quickly. Feedback is immediate. There is no distance between suggestion and execution.

This changes the role of experience.

Inside a company, experience guides decisions you control. Outside, it influences decisions others execute.

The issue is not knowledge. It is calibration.

Advice carries more weight than expected. Timing matters more than content. The same input produces different outcomes in a faster system.

Most do not adjust. They apply the same patterns that worked in slower environments, without accounting for speed, constraints, or execution risk.

The environment has changed. Their operating model has not.

The shift is often described as a move from execution to influence.

That is accurate, but incomplete.Execution carries accountability influence does not.

Inside an organisation, decisions are constrained by ownership. Trade-offs are explicit. Resources are finite and visible.

Outside, those constraints are less tangible.

Advice can be given without fully absorbing its consequences.

This changes behaviour.

Operators who were disciplined in execution often become expansive in advisory roles. More ideas. More directions. More initiatives.

The intention is to help.

The effect is different. Focus weakens.

Orchestration requires restraint, it requires knowing what not to introduce, where execution improves through addition, influence often improves through subtraction.

This is where many struggle.

They replicate the intensity of execution without the boundaries that made that intensity effective.

Teams spend time exploring instead of progressing. Priorities shift too frequently. Decisions lose clarity.

The advisor remains active.

The company becomes less focused.

Most early-stage conversations begin with the product.

Positioning, differentiation, market size.

It gives the impression that outcomes are driven by what is being built.

In practice, the determining factor is how the people behind it operate.

Two teams can start from similar conditions and diverge quickly. The difference appears in how they process input and make decisions under pressure.

Some founders absorb feedback and adjust. Others acknowledge it and continue unchanged. This is not always obvious, but it becomes visible over time.

It shows in sequencing. In what gets prioritised. In whether complexity is reduced or increased as the business evolves. Advisors encounter this early. The signals are there in the first interactions, the difficulty is acting on them.

The product remains easier to analyse. It can be compared, benchmarked, modelled.

Behaviour cannot, It requires judgment, and it carries more uncertainty.

As a result, it is often discounted in favour of more tangible factors.

That decision compounds.

Execution quality follows behaviour, not intent.

Speed is often treated as an advantage. Startups move faster than corporates, decisions are made with less friction. Execution follows quickly.

That speed is real, the challenge is maintaining alignment as it increases.

Teams do not move uniformly. Some functions accelerate. others lag, priorities shift before previous ones are stabilised, the organisation begins to stretch.

This is not a question of effort, It is coordination.

As pace increases, the margin for misalignment narrows. Small gaps in understanding or sequencing compound into larger execution issues.

Advisors tend to reinforce speed. New ideas, new directions, new initiatives.

Each may be valid in isolation.

Together, they increase the load on a system that is already operating near its limit.

The result is not visible immediately.

Progress continues, but with increasing inconsistency. Teams revisit decisions. Outputs diverge. Energy is spent reconciling rather than advancing.

Slowing down is often interpreted as loss of momentum. In practice, it is a mechanism to restore coherence. The constraint is not speed itself but the organisation’s ability to move at the same speed in the same direction.

Governance is often treated as structure, boards, reporting lines, meeting cadence.

The visible elements are clear, the effect is less so.

What shapes outcomes is not the structure itself, but how decisions are made within it.

Which questions are asked. What is prioritised. How disagreement is handled.

In practice, many boards operate through review.

Performance is assessed. Numbers are discussed. Updates are shared, this creates visibility.

It does not necessarily improve decisions.

Value is created when governance sharpens focus. When it reduces noise. When it clarifies trade-offs and enforces sequencing.

It is lost when it adds layers.

Additional metrics, more discussion or interventions that do not translate into clearer direction. The distinction is subtle, as both appear active, but only one improves execution.

Over time, the difference compounds through the accumulation of how decisions are made.

Across sessions, the pattern is consistent. Those further from execution tend to expand the conversation. Those closer to it simplify. The difference is not in capability, but in proximity to decisions. Experience remains valuable, but its impact depends on how it is applied. When it sharpens focus and improves sequencing, it compounds. When it adds layers, it slows the system it is meant to support. The transition from execution to influence is not a continuation. It requires recalibration.

Want to learn more about David’s work?
Check him out here
https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpfalves/

EVOLVE brings together VC’s, PE’s, Family offices, board-level leaders, ambitious founders, and senior operators across commerce markets through ongoing structured conversations.

These discussions take place through expert sessions, small gatherings, roundtables, and private dinners across markets.

The objective is to understand how experienced operators navigate the realities of commerce as those realities evolve.

For leaders who want to participate in these conversations, EVOLVE offers private membership and corporate partnerships for organisations seeking closer proximity to the people shaping commerce across markets.

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The conversations stay practical for the same reason.

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