Francisco Lufinha

About Francisco

Born in 1983, he stepped in a boat at 2 weeks old and has lived endless experiences at sea ever since, including 3 Kitesurf World Records.

Francisco Lufinha is one of the most authentic and inspiring speakers of today, with an amazing story of entrepreneurship, courage and resolution, around the Atlantic Ocean. Upon being the first man in the world to navigate two nights straight standing on a board, this natural born communicator decided to structure his experience and share it with the most diverse audiences.

Kitesurf Odyssey

After being Kitesurf national champion in 2005, 8 years later upon returning from an exhausting project in the Western Sahara, Francisco wanted a new challenge and dared to materialize his dream of kitesurfing the Portuguese coastline, therefore accomplishing his first kitesurf world record, a 29 hours non-stop journey of 564 Km. It was just the beginning of the Kitesurf Odyssey project, a series of 4 extreme crossings in the Atlantic ocean that took Francisco and his team beyond their limits in the adventure of their lives.
>>> Visit Kitesurf Odyssey

Sailing adventures

Long before kitesurfing, Francisco got introduced to the ocean on his parents sailboat and started competing in Sailing at age eleven, conquering national and international trophies and representing Portugal abroad. Sailing is his background and he currently charters 2 sailing yachts in between Portugal, Ibiza and the Caribbean.
Francisco takes the yachts everywhere they need to be and has already sailed across the Atlantic 3 times, while also taking guests aboard for sailing trips.
>>> Visit Lufinha Yacht Charter

Business Management

Francisco completed a Masters in Industrial Engineering and Management in 2007, which led him to work in varied projects and settings, starting his career in large companies as a marketing analyst and evolving gradually closer to his passion of the sea and nautical sports. His experience in strategic marketing and project management, combined with his strong resolution and resilience, allowed him to create his own company - LUFINHA LDA - that runs 6 ocean related business areas.
>>> Visit Lufinha's homepage

Francisco's storytelling

Focused yet FUN

Francisco is not a comediant, but a good mood is a must to overcome challenges, as to capture an audience's attention. During the talks, you will listen to people laughing several times, while discovering the unusual ways found to solve problems.

Supported by REAL MEDIA

Messages passed on to the audience are the outcome of real situations that Francisco lived.
Therefore, a background of photos and videos brings an even greater impact to the challenges' stories.

INTERACTIVE with audiences

The word "lecture" is sometimes associated with boring. That is why Francisco does "talks" and asks the audience for inputs from the begining to the end of the session.
People stay more alert and get the message fully.

With given PROOFS

Francisco will not be throwing away theories or try to give a lesson to your audience.
He gives out his testimony, based on what he had gone through to overcome his challenges.
No bull****, just the real thing.

Messages for the audience

The focus is on examples that drove (and still do) Francisco forward instead of backward, such as while enduring the pain under extreme conditions, believing and thinking on the gratification of achieving a challenging goal and visualizing it even when many miles away from reaching it.

Francisco unveils the hard the work of the people behind each project and how crucial it is the effort to integrate the team and stay away from the – sometimes appealing – individualism. The team delivers encouragement and companionship to overcome obstacles and has an unparallel power to motivate. After all, only a motivated team will embark and endure a kitesurf odyssey “lost” in the middle of the ocean for several days.

The message is about entrepreneurship, innovation and self motivation, which drive Francisco to believe and move forward with his extreme projects, pioneering challenges worldwide, against all negative opinions and odds of success.

After a briefing with the event organiser, Francisco will track episodes within his challenges that meet the specific goal of the event and easily adapt his talk to focus on that message.