Luis Camara Manoel

Luis Eduardo Vitorino da Camara Manoel (born July 21, 1971) is the first Honorary Consul of Portugal to the State of Utah. He was appointed by João Gomes Cravinho, Portugal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, upon the recommendation of Francisco Duarte Lopes, the Ambassador of Portugal in Washington, D.C., on July 7, 2023.
==Early Life==
Camara Manoel was born in Évora, Portugal, to Eduardo Alfredo Dias Camara Manoel, an agricultural engineer, and Maria Jose de Almeida Vitorino, a school teacher. The third of four sons, Luis grew up in the coastal city of Setúbal, Portugal. He spent his childhood, as a boy scout, exploring the rugged mountains of the Arrábida National Park, and its expansive beaches, a period that fostered a deep connection with the environment and a profound love for the ocean. He served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in northern Portugal, from 1991 to 1993.
==Family==
Luis met the former Angela Marie Fawson, from Grantsville, Utah, while serving a Church mission in Portugal, in the city of Coimbra. They met again after their mission, in Salt Lake City, where they were married in 1993, in the Salt Lake Temple. Luis and Angela are the parents of four children.
==Education==
Luis earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Brigham Young University (BYU), in Provo, Utah, in 1999, and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix, in Seattle, Washington, in 2007.
Luis is fluent in Portuguese, French, English and Spanish.
==Career==
=====Technology=====
Upon graduating from BYU, Luis co-founded KeyScouter.com, a social networking company for boy scouting families. In 2000, he accepted a position with Novell, a Provo-based technology firm, where he worked for five years as Senior Program Manager. In 2005 he was recruited by Microsoft, and moved to Washington state, where he worked for ten years. At Microsoft, Luis was granted two technology patents related to the dynamic allocation and assignment of virtual environments within enterprise data centers, a technology that is amply used by cloud services providers. During this period, Luis authored a number of technical articles. In the fintech industry, Luis served on the board of advisors of DivvyPay, a financial technology company that was later sold to Bill.com.
=====International Development and Relief Efforts=====
Throughout his career, Luis remained actively involved in international development and relief efforts. From 2014 through 2019, Luis served as Chairman of the Board at Iduka, USA, a crowdfunding platform to support post-secondary education in developing nations. In 2015, Camara Manoel returned to Utah, when he began working for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Over a period of ten years, Luis worked as a Director of Business Services and Strategic Initiatives, and a Senior manager in Humanitarian Services. Luis’ teams focused on the development of local, sustainable programs, designed to alleviate some of the most common causes of human suffering in developing nations, namely, livelihoods, food security, clean water, maternal health and child nutrition, and literacy and education. In support of these efforts, Luis has traveled extensively across Europe, Africa, Central and Latin America, Asia, Southeast Asia, and pacific regions.
==Diplomacy==
In Utah, Camara Manoel devoted his attention to citizen diplomacy, promoting Portugal’s food, culture and language with local schools, churches and community organizations. In 2023, in partnership with the Portuguese General Consulate in San Francisco, he hosted Portugal’s first consular visit to the state, bringing consular services much closer to the Portuguese diaspora residing in Utah. On July 7, 2023, Luis was appointed Portugal’s first Honorary Consul to Utah, by João Gomes Cravinho, Portugal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, upon the recommendation of Francisco Duarte Lopes, the Ambassador of Portugal in Washington, D.C. As Honorary Consul, Luis’ main role is to foster diplomatic relations, promote trade, and strengthen cultural ties between Portugal and the state of Utah.
==Personal Interests==
Luis enjoys spending time in the ocean. He was a long distance open-water swimmer, and is a certified open water scuba diver.
Category:1971 births
Category:People from Évora
Category:Honorary consuls
Category:Portuguese people