Jose Boto was born on March 2, 1966 in Lures, an area near Lisbon. He started working as a manager with the local team of his birthplace, before moving on to Sacavenese, and then he joined Benfica.

From 2007 he became a scout, while in 2010 he became the head of the scouting department, a role he held until 2018, when he left the Portuguese club.

In 2018 he moved to the Ukraine and became the sports director of Shakhtar Donetsk, taking on a significant share of responsibility for building the squad. Under his stewardship, Shakhtar managed to celebrate various titles and make excellent progress in the UEFA Champions League.

Boto has accepted the challenge at PAOK and now assumes the role of Technical Director for the next two-and-a-half years.