Managing Director of Atlantico Business Development is Arnout Nuijt. Arnout studied political sciences and international economic relations at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

Besides English and Dutch, he is fluent in Portuguese. Before starting Atlantico Business Development in 2012, Arnout worked for many years as Director of International Relations for the Mayor's Office of the City of Rotterdam, being at the core of the city's economic diplomacy.

Arnout planned, hosted incoming and organised outbound business missions together with the Port of Rotterdam, the Rotterdam Chamber of Commerce, the Rotterdam Investment Agency as well as the Rotterdam Port Promotion Council.

Between 2008 and 2014 Arnout was the publisher of Atlantico Weekly and Brazil Weekly, online news sites with English language news about Brazil and other Portuguese speaking countries.

Atlantico Business Development meanwhile has since its founding in 2012 assisted more than 100 companies from the Netherlands, Belgium Germany, Spain, Portugal, the US, Cabo Verde, Brazil, as well as Dutch national and local government agencies and departments.

In the last few years Arnout has turned Atlantico Business Development largely into a maritime services and business development company, active in ship registration, bunkering consulting as well as port development and port promotion.

Activities as well as client base have evolved considerably and now stretch throughout the Benelux (ARA region) and into the UK, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Poland, Greece and the US.

Arnout Nuijt is also Atlantico Business Development's Data Protection Officer, this according to the EU's latest privacy regulations, in effect from May 25th, 2018.



Projects Director of Atlantico Business Development is Maria Brito. Maria is an experienced organizer of events and missions as well as a seasoned import/export consultant as well as operations/logistics manager. Before joining Atlantico Business Development Maria worked with various Dutch public and private companies. She is fluent in Dutch, English, French and several other European languages.



Melicia Ferreira is a dedicated and enthousiastic Project Manager. Melicia joined the Atlantico Business Development team in September 2017 and focuses mainly on the organisation of our business seminars.



Deissy Santos Dias joined Atlantico Business Development in January 2020 as a multilingual Project Manager and also assists with our events.

Atlantico Business Development is a network organization. We operate with a small and dedicated team from our headoffice in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, while maintaining an extensive network of consultants and assistants in our core markets. We are able to upscale our team for a specific project with specific demands at any time.