About me

Hi, I'm Ric.

I'm going to die. I don't know when, and I don't know how, but I know this is the only go I get at life. That fact, once terrifying and now oddly freeing, is the engine behind everything I do here.

My story started in transit. My parents packed a few suitcases and carried me from Portugal to South Africa before I was old enough to remember. They were searching for a better life. I've been searching ever since: for belonging, for meaning, for some way to hold it all together without pretending I have it figured out.

I don't. Nobody does. But I've found that the search itself is the point.

By day, I work in international organisations, navigating complex systems, leading teams across cultures, and helping institutions redesign how they operate. By instinct, I'm a pattern-spotter: I notice where people and systems get stuck, and I think about what it takes to get them unstuck. I bring that same instinct to how I think about leadership, identity, and what it means to live and work with intention.

Stardust in Motion is where I test ideas in the field (in organisations, in leadership, in my own life) and share what survives contact with reality. I write essays, I speak to camera, and occasionally I write fiction, because some questions are better explored through story than argument.

Three forces shape what I explore here. Stillness: the practice of presence, of not-rushing, of recognising that where I am is enough. Becoming: the honest pursuit of growth; not perfection, but alignment between values and action. And impermanence: the awareness that time, energy, and attention are finite, which is what makes both stillness and becoming matter.

I'm a practitioner, not a guru. Everything I share I've tested on myself, on teams I've led, on systems I've tried to change. Some experiments worked. Some didn't. The sharing is how I know the difference.

If something here opens a door for you, walk through it. If you'd like to explore working together — a conversation, a speaking engagement, a collaboration — I'd welcome that too.

Thanks for being here.