De Guindos will collaborate with IESE and the mobile sector is shaken

Another former politician changes jobs. Former PP minister Luis de Guindos will leave the European Central Bank and will begin collaborating with IESE. A week of changes at the top of GSMA Ltd., the company that organizes the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona: John Hoffman becomes president and will be replaced as CEO. And the changes also affect the Mobile World Capital Foundation, from which Francesc Fajula departs. Meanwhile, Banco Sabadell begins a new era with the replacement of its CEO.

Luis de Guindos

Will collaborate with IESE

The Vice-President of the European Central Bank, Luis de Guindos, will begin collaborating with IESE in September, once his term on the ECB board expires on May 31. According to Europa Press, he will be associated with the business school as a distinguished fellow, without formally being a professor.

De Guindos was a minister in the governments of the popular Mariano Rajoy, where he held the portfolio of Economy and Competitiveness between 2011 and 2018. Lately, he has stated on several occasions that politics is a chapter that "is closed" and has rejected returning to it. IESE has stated that De Guindos' participation will provide "a direct and high-level vision" on the financial sector and the international economic context, and that his activity will be fundamentally focused on the Madrid campus. The business school already incorporated in January the then president of the European Banking Authority (EBA), José Manuel Campa, as an ordinary professor in the Departments of Financial Management and Economics.

John Hoffman

Chairman of GSMA Ltd.

Starting July 1, John Hoffman will become president of GSMA Ltd., the commercial and events arm of the global association of telecommunications companies that organizes the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, after two decades as chief executive officer. This is a newly created role that will be more related to the global tasks of this worldwide organization designed to represent the interests of mobile operators and telecommunications companies in general than to the management of the Mobile World Congress (MWC).

Sianne Ryder will succeed Hoffman in the role. Over the past twenty years, Hoffman has played a decisive role in shaping the mobile industry and has driven the growth of GSMA's events and services area, according to the organization. One of his tasks as president will be to focus on developing strategic relationships with partners in the host cities of Barcelona, Shanghai, and Doha. Hoffman has been the main public face of the event in the Catalan capital and one of the professionals who has contributed to its continued presence here.

Since joining GSMA in 2005, Sianne Ryder has led the events and services business units across three continents. One of her successes was the development of MWC Shanghai. Ryder has also spent two decades managing projects and business units within the organization. At the same time, Bob Puglielli will continue to be responsible for the operational execution of the congress, but the name of his position (director of event operations) has also been changed to "reflect his current responsibilities." All changes will take effect officially on July 1.

Francesc Fajula

Leave the Mobile World Capital

Francesc Fajula is stepping down as CEO of the Fundació Mobile World Capital Barcelona (FMWCB) this May. Fajula, who took over as director in July 2022, replacing Carles Grau, is thus ending an almost four-year tenure at the helm of the public-private entity. During his term, Fajula has steered the foundation towards a more humanistic vision of technology, focusing on social impact and services rather than infrastructure.

Among the initiatives launched during his tenure, highlights include the creation of the Talent Arena, an event dedicated to digital talent held in parallel to MWC, and the Tech & Play festival. He has also driven the production of the series Day One for Amazon Prime Video and has consolidated sectoral studies such as the Tech Hubs Overview and the Digital Talent Overview, which is scheduled to be made public at the end of this May. Under his leadership, the foundation claims to have contributed to the growth of around 300 companies and the creation of 750 jobs in the technology sector.

The FMWCB board of trustees comprises the Barcelona City Council, the Generalitat de Catalunya, and the Spanish government, along with GSMA, Fira de Barcelona, Telefónica, Vodafone, Orange, Damm, and CaixaBank. This board, currently chaired by the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, will be responsible for appointing Fajula's successor in the upcoming assemblies.

Regarding his next professional step, although it has not been made official, the newspaper La Vanguardia reported at the end of March that Fajula is the best-positioned candidate to lead the Iberian AI gigafactory project. This initiative, supported by a consortium including companies such as Telefónica, Orange, Nvidia, and ACS, aims to strengthen technological sovereignty in Europe, with facilities in Móra la Nova and San Fernando de Henares.

Marc Armengol

CEO of Banco Sabadell

Banco Sabadell's board of shareholders has this week certified the handover of the chief executive. César González-Bueno has ceased to be the bank's CEO and his position is now occupied by Marc Armengol. While Sabadell had been hiring its recent CEOs externally –González-Bueno, Jaume Guardiola, and Joan Maria Nin–, this time it has opted for someone from within the company. Until now, Armengol, with a 25-year career at Sabadell, had been the chief executive of TSB, the British subsidiary of the bank from the Vallès region, which has been sold to Santander for 3.3 billion euros.

Armengol made his debut before the shareholders, who gave him a standing ovation, with a speech at the end of the meeting. He explained the moment of transformation, competition, and prominence of technology that banking is experiencing. And he committed to maintaining personal relationships with customers and supporting businesses, combining all of this with the use of technology, as a bank more closely linked to the territory now that TSB has been sold.

The new CEO did not rule out that the bank may have to sign alliances or make some acquisitions in some of the businesses where it wants to strengthen its service to customers. In addition to payment methods, one of the areas it will focus on is the digitalization of business for companies and SMEs. "We will not be the biggest, but we will be the closest to customer needs, the fastest in offering solutions, and the most oriented towards anticipating and proposing innovative solutions in a period of rapid change," he concluded in his speech to the shareholders.

Relat, Rodríguez, and Casals

Our advisors at Roca Group

Roca Group will propose to the company's shareholders to incorporate as new directors the president of Fira de Barcelona and MatHolding, Pau Relat; the president of the cement company Molins, Julio Rodríguez; and the general director of Editorial Casals, Ramon Casals. The proposal will be presented at the ordinary general meeting on June 18, and if accepted, it will mean increasing the board of directors' seats from 8 to 11, which "is part of the company's growth strategy and the desire to strengthen its governance".

The rest of the directors of the highest governing body of the company specializing in bathroom products are the former group president Santiago de Gomar, Georgina Barangé, Elisa de Gomar, Silvana Velasco, Josep Roca, Gabriel Pich-Aguilera and Guayente Sanmartín. The company's president is José María Roca.

Christoph Dieterle

Chief Financial Officer of EDreams

eDreams announced the appointment of Christoph Dieterle as new chief financial officer following the personal decision of David Elizaga to step down after a long tenure at the company, although he will continue as a non-executive board member. This transition aims to underpin the online travel agency's new multi-year objectives to reach 13 million Prime members and exceed 270 million euros in EBITDA in fiscal year 2030, as highlighted in the notification sent to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV).

Specifically, Dieterle joined eDreams following the acquisition of Budgetplaces.com in 2017, and his last role was that of director of retail sales and products at the Catalan-origin listed company. Previously, he had served as chief financial officer and, later, chief executive officer of Budgetplaces.com, in addition to undertaking other work in the financial management of Expedia Group.