Javier Echenique, vice chairman of Telefónica and former basic director of BBVA, dies | Economy | EUROtoday

José Javier Echenique, director and vice chairman of Telefónica and former basic director of BBVA, died this Sunday on the age of 74 after struggling a large stroke on Saturday. The stroke occurred immediately yesterday with none motive to suspect that he had any earlier ailment. In reality, final Friday he had lunch with members of the Basque Businessmen’s Circle, additionally within the firm of José María Álvarez-Pallete, president of Telefónica. And final Thursday he attended the funeral of his colleague and buddy Mario Fernández, former vicelendakari and former president of Kutxabank.

Born in Isaba (Navarra), 74 years in the past, Echenique was the consultant of BBVA on the board of Telefónica, a governing physique of which he has been a member since April 2016, the identical month wherein José María Álvarez-Pallete assumed the presidency of the cluster.

Echenique had a level in Economics and Actuarial Sciences from the University of the Basque Country, and a professor of Quantitative Social Security Techniques on the Bilbao Faculty of Economic Sciences of the UPV. He was presently a member of the board of administrators of Telefónica and the advisory board of Telefónica España, in addition to of Telefónica Audiovisual Digital. He was additionally a director of ACS, Dragados and Calcinor, in addition to a member of the McKinsey Advisory Council, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Novia Salcedo Foundation and the Altuna Foundation.

The supervisor had in depth expertise within the monetary sector and was linked to the historical past of BBVA, the place he turned basic director. During his profession on the Basque financial institution he was accountable for the Wholesale Business, answerable for Global Investment Banking, Global Corporate Banking, Business Banking, Government Banking, Local Credit Bank, Asset Management, Banking in Europe, Insurance and Forecasting, E-Business and the Industrial and Real Estate Group.

He due to this fact had an intensive profession as a company operations advisor. As a fruits, he was on the administration workforce that led the union in 1999 between the then BBV (which had emerged from the sum of Banco Bilbao and Banco Vizcaya) and Argentaria, led by Francisco González, who ended up as president of BBVA for 19 years. . Echenique left the entity just a few years later, in 2001, similtaneously the then co-president Emilio Ybarra and former CEO Pedro Luis Uriarte.

Among the numerous positions he held when he left BBVA is that of unbiased director and vice chairman of Banco Sabadell, simply after the president, Josep Oliu. He joined the Catalan financial institution in 2010, within the midst of the monetary disaster, and was a part of the board of administrators till September 2022. During this stage the entity tackled its first try to merge with BBVA, on the finish of 2020, a mission that once more be on the desk, after the Basque entity proposed a brand new pleasant merger to the Catalan one final spring, which resulted in a hostile takeover bid whose decision continues to be unknown. Echenique left Sabadell in the course of the financial institution’s turnaround, after César González-Bueno changed Jaume Guardiola as CEO.

In addition, Echenique held the presidency of Banco Guipuzcoano, was a director and basic director of Allianz-Ercos and a member of firms akin to Repsol, ACS Servicios, Comunicaciones y Energía, Grupo Empresarial ENCE, Sevillana de Electricidad, Hidroeléctrica del Cantábrico, Metrovacesa and Abertis Infraestructuras.

Reactions

The reactions to his loss of life haven’t been lengthy in coming. Álvarez-Pallete, president of Telefónica, left this message on the businessman and buddy. There are many reminiscences of a 12 months that’s inconceivable to overlook and of a few years wherein folks like Javier made us higher. The people who find themselves closest are at all times the toughest to say goodbye to. Goodbye, Javier. “A noble man.”

Likewise, the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, has additionally conveyed his condolences via X. He has indicated that it is a “black weekend” for the Spanish enterprise neighborhood, in relation to the loss of life on Saturday of the founding father of Isak Andic deal with.