Flutter Brazil CTO: Why speed, stability and compliance matter

You stepped into the CTO role after previously serving at the company as VP of Engineering. What do you think changes when your responsibility shifts from “building systems” to “shaping the future?”
The main change is the breadth of the horizon. 

As VP, the focus is on excellence in execution and immediate architecture. As CTO of Flutter Brazil, my mission is to translate the business strategy into a long-term technological vision that supports both the speed of Betnacional and the robustness of Betfair. 

We're not just writing code; we're defining how technology can be the competitive differentiator in a regulated market.

As Flutter Brazil continues to grow, what are the non-negotiables that will protect that balance in the years ahead?
There are two non-negotiable pillars: stability and user experience. Stability in our business means secure, available, fast, and regulated. We entered a new era with Brazilian regulation. 

Our technology must guarantee, by design, that we are protecting our players and operating within the rules. This is not an "add-on," it's the basis of our license to operate. With the creation of Flutter Brazil in 2025, we realized that we also cannot compromise the platform's stability during major sports events, given that the brand's platform has a massive volume of simultaneous accesses. 

Our users are among the most demanding in the world and require our product to react in real time to all changes in sporting events around the world. Our commitment for the coming years is to honor this demand by delivering the most incredible product the market has ever seen.

Looking at 2026 as a “tough year,” as you described in a recent Linkedin Post, what kind of technical and human resilience will matter most to get through it well?
For us, 2026 will be "tough" not in a negative sense, but in the sense of extreme acceleration. The most important human resilience will be the ability to maintain agility and culture while scaling aggressively.

On the technical and operational side, the challenge is to maintain the relevance of deliverables in a remote environment. Many say it's impossible to grow a distributed team without losing human connection or speed, but my focus for 2026 is to show that, with the right and committed people, we can accelerate even further. Brazil has incredible potential, and the goal is to combine global scale with the local energy I saw in our last off-site event.

What do you think Brazilian tech companies need to do differently to compete globally over the next decade?
Brazil has always excelled at rapid growth and marketing, but for the next decade, we need to go beyond that. Today, I see four structural changes necessary for those who want to play in the global league.

First, it is necessary to think globally about the product. The classic mistake is scaling in Brazil and then trying to "adapt" the technology for the outside world. The winning companies are born with architecture, UX, and governance designed for multiple markets and regulations. Today, compliance needs to be a competitive advantage, not a cost. Especially in our sector, trust has become a product. Those who treat data protection, KYC, and responsible gaming as "bureaucracy" will fall behind. Those who incorporate this into the core will win mature markets like Europe and the US.

It is also necessary to invest in proprietary technology. We are creative in communication, but often technologically dependent. To control margins and scale, we need to master the core: applied AI, data analytics, and anti-fraud. Whoever controls the technology, controls the destiny. Finally, it is necessary to think about global execution with Brazilian DNA. The secret is not to lose our identity, but to combine it with global standards of execution and leadership. It's about having Brazilian flexibility operating with international rigor.

What do you believe most companies get wrong when they try to scale distributed teams?
The biggest mistake is the limiting belief that scaling inevitably means becoming slower, more bureaucratic, and colder. There's a myth in the market that, in distributed models, as you grow, culture is lost and people become "Resources" instead of "Humans."

At Flutter Brazil, we're refuting that hypothesis. We tripled our technology team in 2025 — going from 50 to almost 150 people — and our culture got better, not worse. What companies get wrong is not understanding that diversity is a competitive advantage. When you bring people who think differently into a remote environment, you don't create chaos, you create innovation.

The mistake lies in trying to replace trust with rigid processes. It's perfectly possible to grow remotely, quickly, and with happy people. If the team is enthusiastic and committed, physical distance becomes irrelevant.

What foundations are you most excited to build as CTO?
As I mentioned in the previous question, creating a technology organization with over 200 people is immensely challenging. But one of the things that has motivated me most throughout my career has been hearing from colleagues that something was impossible. And since people tell me that maintaining our culture as a promoter of employee retention (we had zero voluntary resignations in 2024 and 2025), and that continuing to be a fast-moving company are impossible things to maintain as we grow, that is now the challenge I want to overcome.

In addition, creating a platform that includes sports betting, casino, payments, compliance, regulation, promotions, and all of this in real time with very low latency and very high availability, is in itself a very motivating challenge and certainly one of the reasons I wake up excited to build this with the best technology team I have ever seen in my 25-year career.

As technology leaders, it’s easy to optimize for speed and delivery, but what’s something you’re intentionally slowing down right now to get right for the future?
It's certainly not easy to optimize for speed and delivery as we grow, but one of the things I constantly repeat to the team is that "Prioritization only happens when it hurts!" This means that the act of prioritizing needs to include deprioritizing something that is important. There are many things we would like to be doing today that will come later in our journey. 

We certainly won't deprioritize quality, as stability, performance, compliance, and security are factors that are present in all the deliveries we make. Our team is very disciplined in learning from problems and ensuring that they don't happen again.

Looking ahead, what technological or organizational shift do you think will most reshape the betting industry in Brazil?
I see a profound organizational shift driven by technology. One example is the rise of what I call the "Agentic Manager." We are entering an era where technical leadership is no longer a binary choice between "managing people" or "writing code." I firmly believe that managers need to be technical — like a Chef de Cuisine who, even if they don't cut all the onions, knows exactly how they should be cut. The problem is that the executive routine distances the leader from the code.

The disruptive change is the use of AI agents as "tireless sous-chefs." The manager of the future doesn't type every line, but orchestrates teams of autonomous agents to write, refactor, and test. This transforms coding from a solitary act into a coordination challenge. This allows experienced leaders to keep their technical "edge" sharp and ensure architectural quality without drowning in the operational aspects.

In the betting industry, where speed and technical precision are vital, having leaders who can leverage their seniority through AI agents will redefine what efficiency and quality of delivery mean.

Recent laws and debates around influencers, advertising and betting are reshaping how the industry communicates. From a technology perspective, do you believe these changes meaningfully affect how platforms are built?Absolutely. Technology needs to be transparent and auditable. 

It's no longer just about displaying a banner, but about ensuring we have complete traceability of where our users come from and how our offers are presented. 

Our systems need to be built with "Compliance by Design," allowing regulators and auditors to verify the integrity of operations and advertising in real time. Platforms need to be a glass box, not a black box.