Head of the Human Resources department since September 2002, Ana Maria Garrido Rijo da Silva was born in 1961 and graduated in Economics and Business Management from the Catholic University of Portugal, having undertaken post graduate study in Actuarial Sciences at the same institution. In 1992, she completed her MPhil in Business Studies at the University of Warwick. Between 1984 and 1988, she was Assistant to the Management Department at her alma mater, where she also chairs the subjects within the fields of behavioural studies and human resources. In 1991, she was a guest lecturer at the Warwick Business School.

Throughout the 1990s, Maria Garrido Rijo da Silva was responsible for coordinating and managing various degree subjects and scientific fields at institutions connected to the Catholic University of Portugal, including the Faculty of Economics and Business Sciences, the University Institute of Social Development and the Faculty of Human Sciences. She also held various consultancy roles and was member of the Commission for the Reorganisation of Tax Service (1997-1998) and the Commission for Drafting the Organic Law for the Ministry of Justice (1999). As a member of the “European Summer School for Advanced Management” (1992-1995) Consortium, she organised the organisation’s 5th program that took place in June 1993.

She has coordinated the post graduate studies in Human Resource Management at the Faculty of Economics and Business Sciences since 1995.

She has been Director of the Recursos Humanos journal since 1999.

Ana Maria Garrido Rijo da Silva joined the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 2000 and was appointed to run the Human Resource department.