Basico, a Danish consultancy that specialises in interim management, flexible leadership and outsourcing of company support functions, has officially started operations in Portugal. The Hellerup-based firm says it will help Portuguese organisations run, streamline and transform four back-office areas: finance, human resources, IT and legal, Jornal Económico reported on Tuesday 6 October. Its Portuguese office is on Avenida Fontes Pereira de Melo in Lisbon, one of four locations the group now lists alongside Hellerup and Aarhus in Denmark and Istanbul in Turkey.
The Portuguese operation is led by João Luís, who takes the title of Country Managing Partner. According to the announcement he has more than three decades of experience in corporate finance and consulting, including time at two of the Big Four accounting firms, and his brief is to bring Basico’s Danish model to Portuguese companies. Basico says it is targeting both small and medium-sized companies with national and international operations and large multinational groups.
| Company | Basico A/S, Hellerup, Denmark (CVR 35852190); founded 2003 |
|---|---|
| Size | More than 300 consultants, according to the company |
| Service lines | CFO Services; Finance IT Services; Legal Services; People & Payroll Services |
| Offices | Hellerup, Aarhus, Lisbon, Istanbul |
| Portugal | Avenida Fontes Pereira de Melo 21, 1st floor, 1050-116 Lisbon; operations announced 6 October 2026 |
| Country head | João Luís, Country Managing Partner |
| Not disclosed | Portuguese headcount, first clients, investment, size of the associate network |
Sources: Jornal Económico, 6 October 2026; basicogroup.com (About Basico, Our Offices, The beginning of Basico), accessed 13 October 2026.
Senior people, placed quickly
Basico presents its offer as an alternative to conventional recruitment. Rather than filling a vacancy through a hiring process, it places highly experienced professionals at short notice to cover critical gaps, run transformation projects such as ERP system implementations or restructurings, and keep operations running. “Finance, human resources and technology should not be limited to reporting the past or keeping systems running. They should provide clarity, support better decisions and drive the business,” Luís said in the announcement. “When a key person leaves an organisation, the answer cannot just be to fill the hole; it is the ideal moment to bring in new perspectives and create lasting change.”
An associate network aimed at expats
Alongside the client business, Basico is launching an associates network in Portugal for senior independent consultants, whether Portuguese professionals or international talent living in the country. Associates keep their independent status but join a professional community that gives them methodological backing, access to projects and continuing development, the company said. The format gives Basico a way to add senior capacity in Portugal without first building a large salaried team. It has not said how many associates it aims to sign or how many people it employs in Portugal.
From Arthur Andersen to four countries
Basico’s founders, Nicolai Kühl and Jacob Poulsen, met in 1993 and built a finance-outsourcing practice inside Arthur Andersen in Denmark, according to the company’s own history. When Andersen merged with Deloitte in 2002 that unit had become the largest department in the firm, and the two left to set up an independent supplier of CFO services; Basico was founded in 2003. Kühl is Managing Partner. The firm describes itself as partner-driven and says it has more than 300 consultants. Its work spans financial controlling and compliance, finance transformation, ERP advisory including Microsoft Business Central and Workday Adaptive Planning, payroll and HR technology, executive search, data protection and “legal department as a service”. The group website is already published in Danish, English, Portuguese and Turkish.
Selling into the Portuguese market
Danish and other Nordic companies have more often used Lisbon as a base to serve their own groups or other markets. The Copenhagen fintech Pleo runs its second-largest office from Lisbon, Sweden’s Essity has one of its two global shared services centres there, and Finland’s ICEYE opened a Lisbon centre of excellence this summer. Basico’s entry is aimed the other way: its customers are meant to be Portuguese companies and multinationals operating in Portugal, and its pitch is that a Danish model of interim management can compete with conventional recruitment for senior support-function roles.
What to watch
The first named Portuguese clients and assignments will show whether the model travels. A search for the Basico name on the Portuguese company database nif.pt on 13 October returned no matching company, so the legal form of the Lisbon operation has not yet been made public. Other Danish companies active in Portugal are listed in the NorthSouth HQ directory of Danish companies in Portugal.