Renato Lerner in CanvasRebel: Career, the Angola Crisis and Leadership That Builds Teams

About the interview

Renato Lerner introduces his background: a civil engineer graduated from UFPE, with an MBA in Business Management from FGV and a postgraduate degree in Occupational Safety from UPE, with roughly 30 years in construction across three continents — Brazil, Angola and the United States. In 2008, he took over the management of a construction firm in Angola, then rebuilding after the civil war; in 2016, he moved to the U.S. and founded Invision Investments, a high-end real estate development and construction company in Florida.

The central episode of the conversation is Angola’s financial crisis: with a government housing contract underway, payments were frozen, inflation soared and suppliers cut credit. Renato describes how he responded — renegotiating terms and barter deals with suppliers, raising capital from private investors, adapting construction methods to local materials and keeping the workforce through staggered payments instead of layoffs. The development was completed, albeit late, and the lesson he highlights is the importance of contingency planning, trust-based relationships and creative problem-solving.

On leadership and team morale, he advocates leading by example, communicating clearly, trusting and empowering people, recognizing good work, investing in professional growth and addressing conflict proactively. A defining personal lesson: learning to delegate — measuring success by the team’s results, not by how much he executes himself. He also mentions a humanitarian project he is proud of: Angola’s first neurodevelopment center, dedicated to children with Down syndrome, autism and other developmental disorders.

Why this conversation matters to construction companies

Current Elevare perspective — not the interview’s words

The crisis described in the interview — frozen payments, cut credit and a half-finished project — is an extreme portrait of what happens, on a smaller scale, when a construction company grows without visibility into cash and risk. In Elevare’s reading, preparing for the unexpected is part of Organizational Capability: cash, team, processes and information ready before the pressure arrives. Tools such as Buffer™ and disciplined construction financial management exist to provide that visibility before a crisis sets in. Explore the Elevare articles for more.