Built around a founder-to-founder approach
Atlas by Cortese was created to help companies hire commercially strong, internationally experienced talent with more clarity, relevance, and trust.
Why Atlas exists
Atlas was built around a gap that has become increasingly visible over the last few years.
Portugal - and Lisbon in particular - has quietly become home to a large pool of internationally experienced professionals with strong backgrounds in B2B sales, growth, partnerships, marketing, customer-facing leadership, and cross-border business development.
At the same time, many international companies continue to struggle with hiring commercially capable talent that can operate effectively across markets, cultures, and modern distributed teams.
Atlas was created to bridge that gap.
Commercial understanding, not just recruitment language
Atlas by Cortese is built by an entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in B2B sales, business development, and company-building.
That matters, because strong commercial hiring is not just about checking boxes on a CV. It is about understanding how someone thinks, sells, communicates, operates under pressure, and contributes to growth.
Atlas was designed to bring a more grounded, commercially intelligent lens to talent placement - especially for founders, operators, and growth-minded teams.
LISBON ADVANTAGE
Why being based in Lisbon matters
Being based in Lisbon is not just a branding detail.
It means Atlas stays close to one of the most interesting pools of internationally mobile and commercially experienced talent in Europe today.
It also means Atlas can provide something many remote hiring models cannot: a more human, local, and relationship-driven layer of support when relevant - especially for placements involving Lisbon-based professionals, fractional roles, or transition support.
That local proximity can make a meaningful difference.
What we believe
- Great hires are rarely found through noise and volume
- Commercial talent should be assessed with commercial intelligence
- Founder-led businesses often need a more flexible and thoughtful hiring approach
- Portugal offers a highly compelling but still underleveraged international talent pool
- Trust, communication, and fit matter as much as skill