Nini Andrade Silva

Paulo Abrantes

Paulo Maló

Founder of the Malo Clinic

For six years now, Paulo Maló has spent his life travelling. Every month he travels the globe visiting his clinics. One moment France, the next Japan, the next China, the next Austria, and the next Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, but in the end, he always returns to Portugal. He lives on planet Earth. He travels the six continents to give talks, despite not liking being in large groups, and his life has been talking to 300, 400, and 10,000 people. Paulo Maló graduated in Dental Medicine at the University of Lisbon and, in 1995, founded the Malo Clinic. He has a PhD in Oral Biology, is a co-author of several books and is a speaker. He teaches at several prestigious universities and has more than 23 years of know-how, innovation, discipline and dedication to dentistry.

You spend a lot of your time travelling for business...

I like to travel, but if it was just me, I would stay in one place, and this place would always be far from a city, because I detest cities. I travel because we have clinics in 20 countries (we are the largest dental medicine operator in the world). There is no others health company that is present in 20 countries.

And that presence requires you to be everywhere, right?

Nothing gets done without the presence of the motivator. To get to a point of success, in particular international, any company has a person who started the project. It is a person who generally has a percentage of insanity and has ability and self-confidence that is far above average. In this company that person it’s me; there’s no time for false modesty. There are people who have the same energy, but not the same level vision. Others have the same capability for vision, but do not have the same energy or are afraid to make the leap.

You are the driving force of the Malo Clinic project...

I am still the driving force of this company, but I am perfectly aware that I am working to do what is known as «delegation of power». My job is all about international strategy, that is to say, seeing which country we are going to enter next. I’m going to visit it, see if we have partners, and then I’ll say if we’re going ahead with it or not. If I say «let’s do it» then I have to support the project. We always have the idea that we are irreplaceable, but of course I am not irreplaceable, because if I were to die tomorrow, someone from here will have to take things forward, not just one person, but a whole group.

«There are people who have the same energy, but not the same capacity of vision»

And is there time for family?

To spend more time with my family I can’t be abroad so often. If I didn’t have a family this would be much easier. At the age of 20 I wanted to be free, as far from women as possible, 24 hours at the most. Now I’ve got to the point where I like family and I like to be with them.

You studied Dental Medicine. Have you ever felt that it was not the right choice?

I studied Dental Medicine by mistake. I never wanted to be a dentist in my life; I do not know how it happened. I am absolutely sure that if I were an engineer I would be a good engineer; I just couldn’t be a lawyer and a politician, because that involves telling lies, and I can’t do that.

And who is Maló as a person?

I am a bit of a loner, I have few friends. I am very crude; I am the son of a farmer. Returning to the subject of lawyers, for them the apple may be poo and poo may be the apple, that’s why most politicians are lawyers. There are few politicians and few lawyers who are really honest. For me poo is poo, apple is apple.

1 October 2018

T. Maria Cruz