Lara Noivo Fernandes is a Senior Business Development Manager for Cisco’s Global Public Sector in EMEAR. Her focus is on supporting Leaders in Education, Healthcare, and Governments as they create sustainable, smart cities, and advising them how to benefit from EU funding schemes.

Portuguese. Speaks English, Spanish, French, Swedish and Italian. +15 years abroad - lived and worked in Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands and Spain, currently based in Madrid.

Lara joined CISCO Systems in July 2018, as Smart Cities Expert, Business Development Manager in EMEAR (Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia), part of the Global Cisco Smart+Connected Communities team.

She worked for almost 10 years in Royal Philips Electronics and Philips Lighting, in Brussels, The Netherlands and Spain. Before that she worked in the European Commission. Started her career in an international law firm in Lisbon, where she was also a Legal Advisor in the Ministry of Education in Portugal.

Graduate in law at the Catholic University in Lisbon where she also obtained a Master in Commercial/Business law. Member of the Portuguese Law Bar Association. Specialization in European law from Fribourg University, in Switzerland. Diploma in the US Legal System from Roger Williams University School of Law, Rhode Island, USA.

As world populations migrate to urban areas, cities are faced with new challenges: traffic, overcrowding, pollution, resource constraints, inadequate infrastructure, and the need for continuing economic, green, inclusive and sustainable growth.

Previously, Lara was helping cities to address these new challenges, and helping communities and their leaders unlock the social, economic, and environmental benefits of digital transformation journey, across the EMEAR region. She also led strategic partnerships with key Urban Service Providers and build a strong partner eco-system for scale in the smart cities and IoT businesses. Developing, in an advisory capacity, long-term relationships with cities, she also provides expertise on how to channel EU funding (knowledge acquired when she worked in the European Commission) to leverage local and European smart city projects, across the EU member countries.

She has a vast experience in Energy Efficiency, EE in buildings, connected lighting, sustainable and climate change topics. She worked in The European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities, launched by the European Commission, where she represented the Philips Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer. The initiative was launched in 2012 and had the objective to “establish strategic partnerships between industry and European cities to develop the urban systems and infrastructures of tomorrow”. Since then she has been working closely to support cities in various countries to become real smart cities.