Female power at the Court of Auditors, MWCapital, Abacus and DO Cava

Very busy week at the helm of various institutions and companies. The Court of Auditors, the Mobile World Capital, Abacus and the regulatory council of DO Cava have changed their leadership with a strong female presence. On the other hand, Renault Spain already has a replacement for the Catalan Josep Maria Recasens, the brand new CEO of Indra.

Llum Rodríguez

Senior Auditor General

The members of the plenary of the Court of Auditors have unanimously elected Llum Rodríguez as senior auditor, after Miquel Salazar resigned from the position on May 30 for personal reasons. In an extraordinary session, the auditors Maria Àngels Cabasés, Anna Tarrach, Manel Rodríguez, Ferran Roquer, and Josep Viñas elected auditor Llum Rodríguez to lead the institution in Salazar's replacement.

Llum Rodríguez will be the first woman to hold this position since the constitution of the Court of Auditors, which has a parity plenary, made up of three women and three men, and a secretary-general. Since March 25 and after Salazar's departure, Llum Rodríguez had already been acting as senior auditor by substitution. In accordance with the legally established procedure, the senior auditor is proposed by the plenary from among its members and appointed by the president of the Generalitat for a period of three years.

Llum Rodríguez (Rioseco, Ourense, 1961) holds a degree in law and political science from the University of Barcelona and is a civil servant of the Barcelona Provincial Council, where she was manager of the Tax Management Organization. Since February 2022, she has been a member of the Court of Auditors, where she directs sectoral departments A and G and is part of the governing commission.

Marta Vidal

President of the DO Cava

The Cava designation of origin, the body that represents the different players in the sector, has elected the CEO of Vallformosa wineries, Marta Vidal, as the new president of the DO for the next four years. Vidal, who had majority support from the plenary members, thus becomes the first woman to hold the presidency of the DO since its foundation in 1972. In Thursday's meeting held at the Vilafranca del Penedès headquarters, the plenary also appointed the representative of Unió de Pagesos within the regulatory council, David Sendra, as the new vice-president for the term.

Vidal has emerged as a consensus figure in the most contested elections for the DO. Besides Vidal – who was the first to express her intention to occupy the position – the founder of the Pere Ventura Family Wine Estates group, Pere Ventura; the owner of the Pagès Entrena winery, Marc Pagès; the president of the Comarcal Council of l'Alt Penedès, Xavier Lluch; and the president of the Cevipe cooperative group, Joan Pons, also presented themselves.

The directive of the cava sector now has four years ahead to address some of the main challenges facing the DO. Even in the weeks leading up to the elections, some candidates had stated that the designation of origin was going through a "critical" moment and that the need to act was "urgent". Among the multiple open fronts, the drop in cava sales stands out, which has already accumulated two consecutive years of decline. Also noteworthy is the trickle of wineries leaving the DO – Juvé & Camps, the most significant – which in recent years have joined other brands such as Corpinnat and Clàssic Penedès, or have decided to go it alone.

Marta Aymerich

President of Abacus

Marta Aymerich was elected as the new president of Abacus. Aymerich is a researcher at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and director of the eHealth Centre, the university's research centre in human and planetary health, which includes 15 research groups in the field of health. Aymerich, who has been part of the cooperative's governing council for four years, is a doctor, holds a doctorate in medicine, and has a master's degree in public health. The new president takes on the role, highlighting the "privilege and great responsibility" that leading the institution entails. Furthermore, she has proposed a "more collegiate and shared" governance through the creation of new specific commissions, such as the Education Commission and the Valencian Country Commission.

The cooperative's general assembly, held on Thursday at the Vèrtex building of the UPC in Barcelona, thus chose the successor to Maravillas Rojo, who held the position for the last nine years. Her tenure has been marked by "profound transformation, growth, and structural consolidation of the project".

Laia Corbella

Director of MWCapital

The board of the Mobile World Capital Barcelona foundation, the entity linked to the MWC technology congress that manages its legacy in the city, has appointed journalist Laia Corbella as its new general director. Corbella takes over from Francesc Fajula, who left the organization in May to lead the artificial intelligence gigafactory project in Móra la Nova.

The journalist, who has held the position of director of communication and institutional relations at the foundation since 2022, was one of the candidates proposed by the headhunting firm Seeliger y Conde, which was also responsible for finding Carlos Grau's successor four years ago. The executive committee, however, opted to offer the foundation's highest body only the candidacy of the brand-new general director.

Corbella, born in Lleida in 1985, has worked as a journalist in various relevant areas of economics and technology in Catalonia. She was the first director of the digital economic media VIA Empresa, from where she went on to direct the communication for the Department of Business and Knowledge of the Generalitat, during the tenure of counselor Àngels Chacón. Subsequently, she moved to the MWCapital foundation as director of communication and institutional relations, a position she held until her appointment as the new general director.

María Isabel Moreno

Chairperson of the Governing Council of Consumer Affairs

Consum has renewed its board of directors, which in its first meeting has appointed María Isabel Moreno Gil as president, the first woman in the cooperative's history to hold this position. Moreno takes over from Francesc Llobell, who is voluntarily stepping down after sixteen years in the role. María Isabel Moreno (Benetússer, 1960) has developed her entire professional career in the cooperative world, first at the Florida Universitària student cooperative and, subsequently, at Consum, where she began her career in stores before joining the central offices and holding various positions of responsibility. Furthermore, she was the second woman to become part of the cooperative's board of directors, and in the last stage, until 2025, she was in charge of the administration directorates.

The Consum cooperative closed 2025 with a turnover of 5,163.6 million euros and a profit of 122 million, and has consolidated its growth in the food distribution sector in Spain. Consum has a workforce of 23,031 employees, the majority of whom are members, and exceeds 5.3 million consumer members. Its commercial network reaches 1,017 establishments, including its own supermarkets and Charter franchises.

Agnès Arbat

CEO of Oriva Therapeutics

Oriva Therapeutics, a women's health company powered by Asabys that develops therapies to treat chronic and prevalent diseases affecting women, has announced the appointment of biotech entrepreneur and doctor Agnès Arbat as Chief Executive Officer. Arbat has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and a strong track record in clinical development, regulatory affairs, and commercial strategy in women's health. She has played a key role in more than twenty clinical studies in this field.

Furthermore, she has contributed to the launch of more than ten products, including Nexplanon, Xarelto, and Ventavis. Previously, she was co-founder and CEO of Oxolife, a biotech company specializing in female fertility. Prior to that, she led the women's health and cardiovascular medical team at Bayer and held roles in medical affairs for women's health at Organon. Arbat will also serve as Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Oriva.

Christian Stein

CEO of Renault in Spain

(MBA from Esade), De Sivatte joined the company in 1995 as a financial analyst.

With a Master's degree in Business Administration from the French business school Emlyon, the new head of the automotive company in Spain has 35 years of experience in the automotive sector. He began his career in 1991 at Peugeot, where he held various roles until joining Seat in 2011. There, he was the right-hand man in communications for the then president, Luca de Meo, a partnership they also formed at Renault when the Italian executive left the Martorell-based manufacturer to join the diamond brand.

Carla de Sivatte

Sales Director of Nestlé

Nestlé Spain has just made changes to its management committee. Carla de Sivatte has taken over the direction of corporate sales, which until then was led by Rai Cararach. He, for his part, has moved to direct the "confectionery" business that De Sivatte managed. Carla de Sivatte has a career of almost three decades at Nestlé. A graduate in business administration and management and with a master's degree in "business administration" (MBA from Esade), De Sivatte joined the company in 1995 as a financial analyst.