Murtra dismisses the CEO of Movistar Plus a 12 months after appointing him | Economy | EUROtoday

This Thursday, Telefónica carried out a profound reworking on the high of its content material division, Movistar Plus, by dismissing its CEO, Daniel Domenjó, simply 13 months after his appointment. The group’s government president, Marc Murtra, who appointed Domenjó and is now dismissing him, has appointed Alfonso Gómez Palacio to switch him, a veteran of the corporate who till now led the operations of Telefónica Hispanoamérica.

The transfer, accredited in a rare session of the board of administrators, places an finish to the interval of Domenjó, whose appointment in March 2025 was Murtra’s first large guess after assuming the presidency of the multinational, changing José María Álvarez-Pallete. The departure of the supervisor, who got here from the unbiased manufacturing sector, happens in a context of rising stress over the strategic course of the platform and the stability of energy inside the group.

Corporate profile

The election of Alfonso Gómez Palacio represents a shift in direction of operational administration and monetary management. Gómez Palacio, a Colombian nationwide, has a two-decade profession within the firm, the place he has held positions of excessive duty, together with the administration of Telefónica Colombia and, extra lately, the administration of your complete Latin American area (excluding Brazil).

Under his management, the Latin American division achieved margin stabilization and capital construction optimization by means of the partial sale of fiber belongings and the consolidation of strategic alliances. Sources near the corporate point out that Murtra seeks to duplicate this effectivity mannequin in Movistar Plus+, which faces a extremely aggressive content material market and fixed strain to make sports activities rights worthwhile, particularly soccer.

The pace of Domenjó’s dismissal and the profile of the brand new appointments have generated a sequence of interpretations available in the market. The substitute takes place underneath the presidency of Marc Murtra, whose arrival at Telefónica in January 2025 was instantly linked to the entry of the State into the shareholding by means of the State Society of Industrial Participations (SEPI), which holds 10% of the capital. Sector analysts level out that this alteration might reply to a must align the content material subsidiary with the brand new roadmap set by the general public shareholder.

The energy community is accomplished with the determine of Javier de Paz. In March 2025, Murtra appointed De Paz non-executive president of Movistar Plus+, a place that he combines together with his position as deputy director of the group’s presidency since October of the identical 12 months. De Paz, former common secretary of Socialist Youth and private buddy of the previous president of the Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, is perceived by the market as the primary hyperlink between the operator and the PSOE.

The dismissal of Daniel Domenjó completes the sweep of the earlier construction initiated by Murtra final 12 months. In March 2025, the brand new president had already allotted with Cristina Burzako, the earlier CEO, and Sergio Oslé, who was the architect of the content material technique throughout Álvarez-Pallete’s presidency.

Domenjó arrived with the mission of boosting its personal manufacturing and opening the platform to new codecs, however its profile, exterior to Telefónica’s conventional tradition, appears to have clashed with the priorities of the brand new presidency. Internal sources recommend that the “lack of harmony” in price range execution and within the coverage of buying exterior rights had been the triggers for his departure.

With the arrival of Gómez Palacio, superior by The EconomistTelefónica expects not solely tighter value management, but in addition a extra natural integration of content material with the remainder of the group’s international operations. However, the sector is cautiously observing whether or not this “corporatization” of Movistar Plus+ will scale back its inventive capability in comparison with giants akin to Netflix or Disney+.

Investor response is but to return. Although Gómez Palacio is an government revered for his monitor report in Latin America, the instability in Telefónica’s audiovisual management—three CEOs in three years—raises doubts concerning the continuity of unique manufacturing initiatives, akin to fiction sequence and large-format documentaries.

The group plans to current its quarterly outcomes subsequent month, at which era Gómez Palacio should break down his plan for Movistar Plus+ and make clear whether or not there will likely be new changes within the Fiction, Sports and Entertainment departments, areas that had been additionally reworked simply twelve months in the past. For now, the official message is “operational continuity,” though the depth of change suggests in any other case.