He was born in Beja in 1970 and graduated in Civil Engineering from the Instituto Superior Técnico in 1993. His final year of university was spent at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris (1993). In 1998, he went to the USA where he enrolled at Harvard University and obtained a Master's in Business Administration (1998/2000).
He began his career with the Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux group in France, where he lived for 5 years. He worked for several years in the City, particularly at the investment bank Goldman Sachs.
In 2004, he returned to Portugal to head the Aguirre Newman company, where he was also a member of the Group's Executive Committee in Spain. In 2008, he set up his own investment management company.
He was a member of the PSD team that negotiated the 2011 State Budget and was one of the party's representatives at the meetings with the European Union delegation and the International Monetary Fund, as part of the economic and financial adjustment program.
In 2011, he was elected as a member of parliament for Beja and became Assistant Secretary of State to the Prime Minister in the 19th Constitutional Government, with responsibility for coordinating the Adjustment Program.
In 2014, he was appointed by the Prime Minister as a member of the European Commission. He is the Commissioner responsible for Research, Innovation and Science, managing one of the largest science and innovation programs in the world (77 billion euros). He was the architect of the proposal for a future Horizon Europe program of 100 billion euros that will come into force in 2021. He is the fifth member of the European Commission of Portuguese nationality since Portugal joined the then EEC in 1986.
In 2019, he joined the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation as a director. He is also Vice-President of the Jacques Delors Institute in Paris.
He has co-authored several publications in the field of Innovation and Science, including the article"Open Innovation: Research, Practices and Policies" in the prestigious California Management Review, co-signed with the creator of the Open Innovation concept, Henry Chesbrough.
In 2014, he was elected the youngest member of the Portuguese Academy of Engineering. He is also an honorary member of the African Academy of Science. In 2016 he received an Honorary Doctorate in Law from the University of Cork in Ireland and in 2018 an Honorary Doctorate from ESCP Europe(École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris).
On September 26, 2021, Carlos Moedas was elected Mayor of Lisbon.