Jose Ignacio Sanchez Galan: Iberdrola Chairman & CEO

Jose Ignacio Sanchez Galan was born in 1950 in Salamanca, Spain. Jose moved to Madrid where he studied at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenierίa (ICAI) at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas earning a degree in electro-mechanical industrial engineering.

 Aside from this Jose also earned a degree in Business Administration and Foreign Trade from the Instituto Católico de Administración y Dirección de Empresas (ICADE) at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas (Madrid) and received a degree in General Business Administration and Foreign Trade from the Escuela de Organización Industrial (EOI) of Madrid. Jose speaks Spanish, French, Italian, and English.

In 1972, Jose started his professional career at Sociedad Españal de Acumulador Tudor, where from various executive positions he managed the company’s international expansion. He managed Industria de Turbopropulsores (ITP) in the early 1990s and let a successful restructuring.  Jose was the chairman, from 1993 to 1995 of Eurojet, the European consortium which developed and manufactured Eurojet engines used by the Eurofigher.

In 2001 he was appointed as executive vice-president and CEO of Iberdrola and in 2006 appointed executive chairman of the company. Under his leadership Iberdrola has grown to become one of the world’s largest electricity company and a global leader in wind energy. 

César Alierta Izuel: Telefónica CEO

César Alierta Izuel was born on May 5, 1945 in Zaragoza, Spain.   In 1967, César received a Bachelor’s Degree in Law at the Universidad de Zaragoza (Spain).  Three years later after earning his degree, he obtained a Master’s Degree in Business Administration at Columbia University in New York, USA.

In 1970 César began working at Banco Urquijo as a Financial Analyst. Later he became General Manager of the Capital Markets at Banco Urquijo in Madrid. In 1985 César founded Beta Capital and served as President and Chairman.  From 1996 to 1999 he was the CEO of Tabacalera, the tobacco company.

In July 2000, César became the Executive Chairman and CEO of Telefónica. He has been an effective CEO and in September 2005 received the Global Spanish Entrepreneur award in New York by the Spain-US Chamber of Commerce. This distinction is an acknowledgement of his job as president of Telefónica, leading the firm to entry into the Dow Jones Global Titan 50 index. Telefónica is the first Spanish company and one of the very few in Europe to be part of this index, made of the world’s 50 most successful, global and largest companies. 

Florentino Pérez Rodriguez: Spanish Executive

Florentino Pérez Rodriguez was born on March 8, 1947 in Hortaleza, Madrid, Spain. Today he also resides in Madrid, Spain. He went to the Polytechnic University of Madrid and earned a civil engineering degree. Florentino has had a varying and colorful career.

He entered politics in 1979 joining the Union of the Democratic Centre party. Florentino served among others on the Madrid city council. His political ambitions went further and he ran as a candidate for the Partido Reformista Democrático (Democratic Reform Party) in the 1986 general elections.

Florentino did not let his civil engineering training go to waste. He was named vice president of OCP Construcciones in 1993. In 1997, OCP and Giney Y Navarro merged forming Actividades de Construcción y Servicios, SA (ACS) and Florentino became president of the new company. It is today one of the largest construction companies in the world.

Florentino is definitely better known as the president of the Real Madrid Football Club. He has been president on separate terms and has now served a fourth term.  It was Florentino who started the era of brining very popular and very expensive football players to Real Madrid. 

Francisco Rodriguez: BBVA Chief

Francisco Rodriguez was born on October 19, 1944 in Chantada, Lugu, Spain. He graduated from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 1970 with a degree in Economics and Business Sciences. 

Francisco’s first job was as a computer programmer at an IT company in 1964.  His interest then shifted to finance and he left the computer industry to become a stockbroker in 1983. Francisco ranked first among the candidates who took the stockbroker exam in 1980.

In four years time he earned enough money to start his own brokerage firm, FG Inversiones Burtsátiles. It was the first and largest independent brokerage firm in the country. Francisco sold this company to Merrill Lynch in 1996 for $30 million greatly increasing his wealth.

His brokerage business also allowed him to establish connections with people in the political arena. In 1996 a new government was elected in Spain. In the process Francisco was appointed as chairman of the Argentaria banking group. The government chose Gonzalez to complete the privatization of Argentaria which was formed in 1991 in a merger with government-controlled banks in Spain. The government still owned 25 percent of the group which had 16,000 workers.

Francisco instituted far-reaching reforms in the banking group. It included merging three main units, refinancing its expensive assets, reducing costs, as well as taking the painful action of cutting jobs.

A major event happened in the Spanish banking industry when two of the largest banks, Banco Santander and Banco Central Hispano merged.  This convinced Francisco to merge with Banco Bilbao Vizcaya (BBV) in 1999 as not to be left behind.

Francisco became the cochairman of the newly formed BBVA sharing responsibilities with Emilio Ybarra who was the CEO of BBV.  A serious crisis occurred in 2000 when it was found out that BBV had been involved in illegal activities such as money laundering, slush funds, and bribery. The illegal activities involved BBV before the merger. Francisco took actions to correct the wrongdoings; it also led to the resignation of the cochairman and other employees.  There were 27 person indicted in connection with the scandal.

This left Francisco in sole command of BBVA. Since then he has pushed for the expansion of the bank’s operation overseas. With his computer programming background he has also championed the use of technology to improve banking efficiency and profit.

Zhou Zhongshu: Top China Minmetals Man

Zhou Zhongshu was born in 1952, in Jiangsu Province, China and graduated from Shanghai International Studies University.  He started his career in China Minmetals Corporation in January 1970. As typical of talented managers he has worked in a number of executive positions in different parts of the company including being stationed abroad.

Zhou has worked within the corporation as executive vice president of China Metals & Minerals (Brazil) Ltd., deputy director for metal products business, general manager of the metal products company and assistant as well as vice president of China Minmetals Corporation.

Aside from Brazil Zhou was also posted in Spain as Commercial Counselor of the Chinese Embassy while being the vice president of China Minmetals Corporation. Being employed in a state-run company Zhou has had to play dual roles as a government and corporate employee.

Beside his management skills Zhou has also been productive as an author. While he was the Commercial Counselor to Spain he authored 15 articles including “Experience of Management System Reform for State-owned Assets in Spain.” His articles have been published in domestic and overseas newspapers and publications.

For his management skill and hard work Zhou was appointed president of China Minmetals Corporation on December 2004. It became evident early on that he was not ordinary business head. He immediately proposed a new strategic goal of doubling the business revenue and profit of Minmetals within 5 years. This propelled the company into a new development phase.

Under his leadership China Minmetals has been cited by industry organizations as one of the best performing enterprise in its industry. The company that Zhou leads is actually an international heavyweight being one of the largest corporations in the world.

The firm is based in Beijing, China and was founded in 1950. It has long played an integral role as a major import and export channel for metals and minerals in China. With Zhou at the helm it is now an internationally competitive and respected company.

Antonio Brufau Niubó: Outstanding Spanish Executive

Antonio Brufau Niubó is the Chairman and CEO of Repsol, the largest oil company in Spain and one of the 10 largest in the entire world. He is credited for the turnaround of the company. Antonio did this by using new technology and reducing debt. New technology has resulted in finding reserves off Brazil in the Atlantic Ocean.

Antonio has led Repsol into active explorations outside of Spain including having discoveries in Morocco and Sierra Leone. Repsol has also been investing heavily in Bolivia with commitments to invest $640 million in the country.  It does business in 30 countries on five continents. More than half of the company’s 40,000 workforce are employed outside of Spain.

Born in 1948, Antonio earned an economics degree from the University of Barcelona. He started his career at Arthur Anderson and became Partner and Director of Audit. He then joined Spanish bank “la Caixa” as Deputy Managing Director.

Antonio has been a busy executive all his career being Managing Director of “la Caixa” Group from 1999 to 2004 and Chairman of the Gas Natural Group from 1997 to 2004. He became the chairman of Repsol in 2004.

Antonio is a member of the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), the Advisory Board of CEIM Confederación Empressarial de Madrid – CEOE, and other important and prestigious organizations.  He is one of the best executives to come out of Spain and has also proven his global business savvy.

Alfredo Saenz Abad: Veteran Spanish Banker

Now in his early 70s Alfredo Saenz Abad has been in the banking scene for around 50 years already. He has seen a lot and has also been very much involved.  He guided Banca Catalana through the 1980s Spanish banking crisis and also prevented the closure of Banesto.

His latest challenge has been working with Banco Santander. He became a board member in 1994 and was appointed vice chairman and CEO in 2002.  When he came in as CEO the bank was heavily suffering from the slowing economies in Latin America. He took a tough stance even stopping to give money to the bank’s Argentine unit.  Alfredo at the same time set out to make Santander one the largest banks in the world.

He was able to achieve this by acquiring other banks.  Santander bought Abbey National in 2004. It also bought the consumer finance arm of RBS in the UK and GE’s consumer finance operation in Europe among its many acquisitions.  Today Santander is the largest bank in the Eurozone by market capitalization and one of the largest in the world.  It still has its struggle given the real estate problem in its home country of Spain.

Alfredo remains undeterred even with a legal problem that could have him spend some time in jail. He still has the reputation of being one of the best bankers in Europe.