Carrilho has forty year-experience in rural development practice, having started working at village level on diagnostic, project design, implementation, evaluation, and policy making. He holds a MSc degree in Remote Sensing applied to environmental studies. He is a retired civil servant, having served as Vice-Minister of Agriculture and Chairperson of the Institute for Rural Development. As a consultant, he worked on business competitiveness and agricultural value chains, land and natural resources management, rural infrastructure, and rural development project evaluation. He has visited or worked in some countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America countries. He is currently a PhD candidate on Social Sustainability and Development at Universidade Aberta, Portugal.