Web3 CMO Stories

From Reputation To Results: How A Global Invite-Only Commerce Club Scales Trust | S5 E51

• Joeri Billast & Carlos Monteiro • Season 5

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Reputation travels faster than personal branding when the right people vouch for you. That idea sits at the core of our conversation with Evolve Commerce Club founder Carlos Monteiro, who traces a path from helping Danish companies enter Brazil to building an invite-only network of senior leaders across 48 markets. We dig into how perspective, generosity, and consistent follow-through transform one-off intros into compounding trust—and why that matters most for executives navigating career transitions.

We unpack the early stumbles and the breakthrough: focusing on seasoned professionals who once represented a company but now need to represent themselves. Carlos explains how Evolve’s paid club delivers tangible value with curated matchmaking, private expert sessions, and monthly off-the-record circles designed for honest asks, not pitches. As member outcomes grew, companies began commissioning targeted dinners and private workshops, giving the community a clear monetization path without sacrificing signal quality.

We also get practical about tools and tactics. Despite doubts in parts of Europe, WhatsApp won because it’s where people already are, driving daily engagement with minimal friction. Looking ahead, Evolve is investing in an AI agent to summarize profiles, automate thoughtful check-ins, and surface timely connections as careers evolve—augmenting human judgment rather than replacing it. Along the way, members are self-organizing meetups from Lisbon to Dubai, proving the culture is strong enough to scale.

If you’re a senior leader in transition or a connector at heart, you’ll find a playbook for building trust-first networks: vet carefully, reward generosity, meet members where they are, and let results speak louder than branding. Subscribe, share this with a colleague who’s rethinking their network strategy, and leave a review to tell us what part of the conversation you want us to go deeper on next.

This episode was recorded in the official podcast booth at Web Summit (Lisbon) on November 12, 2025. Check the video footage, read the blog article and show notes here: https://webdrie.net/from-reputation-to-results-how-a-global-invite-only-commerce-club-scales-trust/

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Carlos Monteiro:

I don't like that word personal brand. I like the word reputation because in the end it's all about our reputation. I think Gary V is awesome, but while he's great and a couple of things, he talked a lot about personal brand, but I don't think he talked a lot about perspective viewer point of view.

Joeri Billast:

Hello everyone and welcome to the Web3 CMO Stories podcast. My name is Joeri Billast, I'm your podcast host, and I am still at the Web Semili boot. I'm joined by Carlos. Hey Carlos, how are you? Hey Joeri, thanks very much. Doing well, how are you? Good to see you again. Guys, if you don't know Carlos Monteiro, he is the founder of Evolve Network, that I'm personally also a part of met Carlos a few months ago already. The time flies, Carlos.

Carlos Monteiro:

He does, it goes fast, huh?

Joeri Billast:

Yeah, it goes fast. Then I was giving a keynote about the theme of the future, which is actually my book right now, The Future CMO. Yeah, Carlos, let's dive straight in. I just mentioned your network. So you have built that it's invite-only, invite-only global network, connecting senior leaders across markets. What problem in the traditional networking or events made you want to build something different?

Carlos Monteiro:

Sure. So I think in order to answer that, just give a step back. Carlos Monteiro, Brazilian, based in Denmark. I used to work for the Danish government many years ago. And during that time, working for the Danish government, one of my roles was to help Danish companies enter the Brazilian market. That's the origin story. Met someone there, she brought me to Denmark. And when I arrived in Denmark, you know, it was very hard to, as an international, and you know that you're from Belgium, based in Portugal. You have to have a network, right? So where do you start? I started, I actually started producing content. I had a blog called denmarkbrazil.com because I wanted to find a job. Couldn't find a job, was applying. And then I discovered LinkedIn, started sharing my content on LinkedIn and my point of view, my perspective on business in Brazil. And that's how it started. Companies were looking for my services to help them enter the Brazilian market. Over time, I started helping multiple companies across multiple sectors to go to Brazil. For some reason, companies in the e-commerce space, mostly tech vendors, were finding me. They were like, Can you help me? There was lots of referrals coming my way. So I started to specialize there. To answer your question, is so why the network? Being an international, helping companies expand internationally and enter a new market, I realized it's always about people, senior people who are gonna give you access. But in order for them to give you access to their network, you need to build trust. And in order to build trust, you need to give them something. Like we're doing a podcast where you're creating value for me. The reason you're creating value for me now is because I gave you also a stage in my community, introduced you to a couple people. For me, this is very natural. People are still in an odd and interesting way are learning about this. You know, what is very natural for us and obvious that we can get referrals this way. And this is probably it looks slow, but it really accelerates your act. You know, it's it's really powerful. The reason why I decided to create Evolve is because over time I wasn't just a consultant anymore between Denmark and Brazil. The scope of my services was increasing. It was always about finding the right people in the right markets that were great, giving me access for my clients. The Evolve Commerce Club is this place today where we have senior leaders, as I said, finding senior people in international markets with the right mindset, who are open to connections, and we have people today spanning across 47 markets. Commerce is always our common story, but again, you're in Web3. There's something there as well in commerce. So did I answer your question?

Joeri Billast:

Yes, yes, you did. And I love your passion as always. Uh also when we met each other directly recording video, remember that? Now a lot of noise out there. How does Evolve Helm senior leaders stay grilled on the platform then you know, because everyone wants to look at brand, but how do you do that?

Carlos Monteiro:

So yeah, I think when you send me your questions, you use something really good that you said the the the personal branding trap, which I completely agree. I don't like that word personal brand. I like the word reputation because in the end it's all about our reputation. I think Gary Vee is awesome, but while he's great at a couple of things, he talked a lot about personal brand, but I don't think he talked a lot about perspective, your point of view. And I think we all have a perspective, a point of view. Some people are a bit afraid of sharing because they may be canceled or not, but we all have some kind of point of view. And when we don't necessarily have a point of view, we tend to lean towards a cause, right? So the way we create our network is always invite only. For example, you were referred to me by Renee, who's been a member for maybe a year now or more. We believe that again, creating a network where people are referring word of mouth, it's the best way, and we always vet people. There's a vetting process. Renee referred you, we got to meet, we had some FaceTime, then we went through a call, understood what you know what are your goals, and and then you filled out the form. Then the next thing we do is connect you with at least two people that we believe can be in line with your life or business goals. Not necessarily to create a business opportunity, we believe that by creating this environment where we are referring to each other, kind of like word of mouth on steroids over time, we're creating an environment where people understand that trust takes time to build, but it also compounds over time because who's been there understood that there was a process and know that you're not gonna be there just to pitch them your service. You know, you're there for a conversation, you're gonna understand your goals and so on. So that's our belief. It's creating an international ecosystem where you can accelerate your network in an environment where trust has been placed and it's growing, if that makes sense.

Joeri Billast:

Yeah, like in my book, The Future C already mentioned it. I also speak about community, that it is a new marketing. And you mentioned referrals, people from all over the world, and everyone meets. Actually, now we are meeting today because you are bought at the web summit. How does it look like for you? Community for Evolve, commuting, community for the future of B2B e-commerce.

Carlos Monteiro:

Yeah, so B2B, it's it's about people. Perhaps I should tell you how we started and the mistakes we made to get where we are today. But uh, we when we started the community, of course we need to pay our bills, Gustavo and I. We were like, How are we gonna monetize this? We did not understand exactly how we were creating value. So we had about 120 members a year and a half ago, and we were like, let's try and approach companies in the e-commerce space because they may be able to pay for whatever package we create here. The problem is a company, companies they don't want to bet on a vision, right? They want to bet on some kind of certainty. So there wasn't a clear ROI in saying, okay, Yuri, I'm introducing you to, for example, Mallison. There's no clear ROI there, even though senior exacts understand the concept of a community, it's not really clear how that can lead to a result. But what we started noticing in our community was that senior professionals in a career transition, typically former C-level professionals, were interested in what we were doing. So we started doing research within our community to say, okay, how can we create a product? A lot of the professionals in our community said what you're doing is already amazing. So how are you gonna monetize this? Because we paid to be part of other communities and say, okay, tell us more. What is it that you have in return that we are not seeing? We did a survey first was one-to-one research with our club members, talked to a couple of club members that liked and trust what we were doing. Then we did a qualitative research on a one-to-one basis, and then we just sent a message. We did a poll on WhatsApp and asked people to fill out uh a form to give their opinions, and then we came with what we call a V1 of the product, like what we could offer. So matchmaking, the expert session, access to all the meetups, one session a month where our club members we we divide the community is free, the club is paid. So where our club members can come together as a collective and we say it's like pay for business. You go there, you share whatever you want to share. The sessions are not recorded. It took us time to understand okay, we have an audience here. The audience that values what we are doing are senior professionals in a career transition. They typically come from commerce, it could be from payments, it could be from a brand. These professionals have been representing a company, but now that it's time for them to represent themselves, they don't know. And that's that I think that was the first aha for Gustavo and I. And then we productize that. Well, okay, we have a we have a community, a paid club today for senior members. So we started evangelizing that perspective and sharing that point of view. Then the next thing, which we didn't chase, but started happening were companies then saying, But do you guys do events? And people representing companies because they look for lead gen partnerships and so on. So that first idea we had is now happening, and how we're offering our services, we have the private club. Now we also have dinners, like you have retreats, right? So we have dinners, we have workshops. So Gustavo isn't at the web summit this time because we closed the deal with some really interesting guys. He's going to deliver a workshop, a private label event just for 40 people at a nice hotel in Sao Paulo. Stuff that we we've been discovering and things that we were not predicting. But I think bigger ha for us was to discover our audience, what they valued. So senior professionals in a career transition, and there are lots of transitions there, focus there, just in that just in that audience, and then everything else started happening, like vendors. And now we're getting very clear again in what uh what we can offer to the vendors. So, again, dinners, oh, meetups, again, you know, creating a clear calendar for meetups in 2026 in specific markets. We're gonna look into chapters uh in different countries because we saw that this year the community uh themselves they were self-organizing uh like meetups, and then they just said, Hey, we did a meetup in Dubai, for example. We did a meetup in they did in Lisbon, like a breakfast, and then we just got the pictures, so that's really amazing, you know? And people who get to connect and they just send stuff, you know, and then you get stuff on WhatsApp where just hear a message afterwards and say, Hey, stuff happened. It's like, oh, amazing, you know.

Joeri Billast:

And then I think you have a community if it's happening like that, because you are not stealing yourself all the time, but you have people organizing stuff. Yeah, I love how you're building all of that. So we are here at Web Submit, guys, you cannot miss it. One of the main topics, of course, is AI. Yeah, so then I'm wondering, Carlos, for you for evolve, how what is the role of AI? Does do you does it help for the matchmaking, or is this pure something that you do yourself?

Carlos Monteiro:

So we've been doing ourselves, but of course, we are looking at how can we be more productive and how can we get to know our members? Because again, you work for a company today, but it doesn't mean you're gonna be there forever. We are investing in creating our agent. The first step, the first layer, is we have our agent to once the person fills out the form, then the agent sends us the the person's profile. Then the next step is something we've been discussing, is uh Gustavo and I is like, okay, how can I have a bot, like my agent, sending asking questions to this person, kind of like a follow-up, because I need to understand what happened in this person's life within three months, four months, a year. They might be in a new position, but I it's really hard to follow up on a one-to-one basis. I need this agent to sort of talk to this person so they can fill me with more data, they can fill us with more information, and then I can have context to connect them with a new person that makes sense for them, or a new person joining our club. So that's how we are we're looking at matchmaking AI as a layer that is going to help our members and therefore evolve to have more contextual connections in the moment that they're going through. Does it make sense? Yeah, absolutely. So that's that's where uh but I mean still early days we are we're investing, and you know, we're not funded in any way, so we're using our funds to invest in the business in these things that I'm sharing.

Joeri Billast:

Yeah, it's amazing what you're building, and I love the fact that you are so many people from different countries.

Carlos Monteiro:

47 wanted. 48 today, Lithuania joined, so 48 today.

Joeri Billast:

So that's amazing. Cultural patterns that have surprised you, you know, how people collaborate in some interesting things.

Carlos Monteiro:

Uh Europeans, and we spoke about this. I was very challenged here in Europe by people, especially in the Nordics, saying that WhatsApp wouldn't work and it's working. We paid for a platform called Mighty Networks, which is amazing just for communities. This is another project we have, which is education, it's gonna happen. I think the pattern is people sometimes challenge you just for the sake of challenging, like saying, Ah, another community, is it gonna work? People sometimes just challenge and drop the bone. If you're not persistent, if you're not resilient, you're just gonna give up. So we were very challenged by the fact that WhatsApp wouldn't necessarily work, and it works just for the simple fact that people use this tool on a day-to-day. I would say that's one of the things, you know, in terms of culture that is very interesting. In Brazil, we use WhatsApp, we see that is very uh natural in emerging markets like Egypt, Turkey. But what's so interesting is to see that people that said in the beginning that WhatsApp wouldn't work, they're using it. Yeah, you know. So again, I think it's really hard to change behavior, but once people start realizing that, well, there's a culture here, you know, you're not just there's no pardon my French bullshit, you know, we're not pitching all the time, and there's actually interesting stuff happening in the community, they will start using whatever medium you have. It could be Discord. In our case, we're very bullish on WhatsApp because people are there. You could change a year from now, I don't know, but for now it's WhatsApp, it's where people are right now because exactly.

Joeri Billast:

We don't have so much time left, but I wanted to ask what are you now the most excited about when it comes to evolve and what's happening for you?

Carlos Monteiro:

What I'm most excited about, um at heart a connector. I really enjoy connecting people. If I didn't have to make money and if I had to do this for free, I would do this. Yeah I love it. I don't know why, but I'm a connector. This is what I've always done. But I'm excited about what people tell me, the transformations I see in their lives. That's why you have a community, right? When people come and share their stories and say, hey, this happened, I closed the partnership, or I found a new friend through the community. I mean, I'm really excited about that. I'm excited about what we're building, like the chapters in different markets. I'm excited about the educational projects that we we want to have. Again, we are a collective of experts, so we believe that this is a community that has experts, and experts can inspire other experts as well. So those new projects really excite me. But I try to be grounded because there's a lot going on.

Joeri Billast:

The time always flies, uh Carlos, when I speak with you. Now, if people are interested in Evolve or want to know more about Evolve, where would you like me to send them?

Carlos Monteiro:

Appreciate it. Evolve Commerce Club, you can find me on LinkedIn. So Carlos Evolve or Carlos Denmark. I'm probably the only Carlos in Denmark or one of the few ones. The website evolve-community.com. Again, if you're a professional in a career transition senior, you built something, we want to hear from you. If you have a giving mindset, if you're looking for a place where you're gonna find experts, but really nice people like Yuri here. You're very welcome to join us.

Joeri Billast:

Amazing. There's always a blog post, show notes, everything you mentioned will be in there. Camlos, it was really a pleasure to have you. Thanks very much for the invitation, Yuri. What an amazing episode. People are among you.

Carlos Monteiro:

All right, thank you. Thanks, Yuri.

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Joeri Billast

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