Hi everyone! My name is Nia and I am the founder of Portugal Wizard. I want to share my story with you and how I became an immigration consultant.

I was brought up in an upper middle-class Portuguese family with high values of honour, honesty and integrity.

My great grandfather was a Norwegian Diplomat at the Norwegian embassy in Lisbon and we were used to mingle with high level social and political figures. As children me and my cousins were supposed to be seated straight and quiet during all the party dinners hosted at my gramma’s so what was left, apart of enjoying our meal (which was sometimes too fancy for our sake), was to listen to the grownups and try and learn something from their “boring” conversations about economy, history, politics and arts. Of course, some of my cousins would just giggle at each other’s joking faces, but me, as the oldest and with the eager to grow up and become an independent woman like my gramma (she was one of the first ladies to wear a pair of trousers in Lisbon and ride a horse astride instead of side-saddle), was all ears and interested in sucking in all information I could get about “the important” things.

Although I had peculiar interests, I wasn’t really a high grade’s student and couldn’t really choose a specific subject to lean on at university. My brain would drift from subject to subject at a fast pace and I would easily get bored at school.

At home, I was taught to do it all by myself and from an early age, I learned that if there was something that I wanted, no one was doing it for me. This gave me extremely high problem-solving skills that turned out to become really useful in my adulthood.  

I ended up graduating at “Human Relations and Organizations’ Communication”, after attending two other high education degrees that I didn’t actually complete. However, this gave me, along with the strong sense of survival and high problem-solving skills, the ability to solve absolutely any problem I set my mind to. In order to do that, I had to become pretty familiar with the law, so I could have my rights met, and that was exactly what I did. This made me an avid law connoisseur and soon most of my friends and family were coming at me for advice on how to solve their problems, specially within government authorities, after they see me make the (what seemed to them) impossible happen.

It was definitely my purpose to help others to ease their lives and not having to struggle with all the complex information and assertiveness required to “fight” institutionalised beliefs that aren’t always based in the law, but I would only find that later in life. I always under estimated myself and didn’t really feel I was doing something extraordinary as it came at a natural skill for me.

Life went on and I eventually became the independent woman I once dreamed off at my early twenties, but not without struggling to pay my rent and bills, without any other financial help. I lived abroad studying and working to support myself and to pay my studies, and a couple of years after, when I returned, I ended up moving to my summer holiday’s small coastal town, and got together with the father of my son Lourenço, with who I had a 10-year relationship. When Lourenço was 6 months old we split up and I had the hardest and saddest time of my life. A single mom with a new born in my arms, with little or no support system at all and no will to survive. Despite all the struggles, especially the emotional ones (the logistic ones I was always able to figure it out), and after 7 years of therapy, I was reborn to my best version until now! I surpassed all the pain and in addition I was able to ditch all the limiting beliefs with which I have grew up. I was ready to find my purpose!

After working for an American IT multinational for 3 years, and successfully putting my skills to its service, I needed a higher challenge. I felt the need of working closer with people and experience the results of my efforts in a more intimate connection, where I could indeed feel the outcome of my work at a personal level.

I founded my Interior Design company (one of my areas of study) – “Cosy Interior Design” – and started to work with local customers as well as expats that recently had moved to Portugal.

Within the second year of my new business, I started to be recommended by customers on these expats Facebook groups and realised the sad true of the struggle that all faced when dealing with the overwhelming process of moving to this amazing, but highly bureaucratic country, where even locals struggle to get things done, let alone new comers.

How and where to obtain a NIF, how to open a bank account, visas procedures and paperwork, timelines and language barrier, finding a place to live, dealing with the tax office and the Social security, registering at the public health system, Immigration laws… everything I was an expert on and had gone though all my life, not only at a personal level but as an extreme helpful asset to my friends and family!

Little by little I started helping expats on their new adventure of moving to Portugal and the feedback was so good I ended up deciding to do it full time.

In the way, I faced and won over multifaceted problems which demanded resilience, creativity, and the ability to leverage my problem-solving skills to navigate through intricate scenarios.

Overcoming these challenges, I have gained an even deeper understanding on how to tacker any problem. This became the cornerstone of my professional identity, transforming me into the ingenious and adaptable problem solver that I am today.

My journey has not only shaped my professional identity but has equipped me to catalyze positive change and provide impactful solutions to the complex problems my customers can face when moving to another country in the pursue of the next chapter of their lives, which they all desire to be effortless and simple.   

Will you be next?