Telefónica and Indra redo their structure and Kern appoints a new director
The chemical company Covestro has a new chief executive in Spain
Two of the main Spanish telecommunications and technology multinationals, Telefónica and Indra, have reformulated their organizational structure this week, which has meant the restructuring of their management teams, while the Catalan pharmaceutical company Kern Pharma has appointed a general manager. Likewise, Airbus has made the appointment –announced last April– of Amparo Moraleda as the new chairwoman of the board of directors, and the German chemical company Covestro, with a significant presence in Catalonia, has announced the arrival of a new general manager in the State.
Javier de Paz
Deputy Director to the Presidency of Telefónica
The telecommunications multinational Telefónica, chaired by the Catalan Marc Murtra, has reorganized the internal structure of its subsidiary in Spain into three large independent business areas: business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), and wholesale business. The company aims to eliminate duplicate roles and accelerate the decision-making process, but it does not represent any change in the group's corporate structure in the country.
The group's CEO, Emilio Gayo, will be the top executive responsible for these three new divisions, as well as a newly created technical directorate. Gayo will also manage the businesses in Brazil, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
The B2B unit in Spain is led by Borja Ochoa and will encompass direct business with companies and public administrations, as well as cybersecurity, defense, artificial intelligence (AI), data analysis, and cloud services. The subsidiary Telefónica Tech will come under the umbrella of this unit and will continue to be managed by Sofía Collado.
Regarding the B2C division, it will incorporate the residential business and the content of the Movistar Plus+ platform under the leadership of Óscar Candiles, while the wholesale business –that is, with other telephone operators– will have Marisa Urquía as its top executive. Sergio Sánchez will assume the technical direction and, like Candiles, will become part of the company's executive committee.
Furthermore, with these structural modifications, the board of directors of Movistar Plus+ is eliminated, previously chaired by Javier de Paz, who is moving to a new position as deputy director to the chairman with responsibility for infrastructure, real estate assets, and corporate social responsibility, in addition to also assuming functions in business development and continuity at a European level.
Arturo Molina
Managing Director of Covestro in Spain
The Mexican executive Arturo Molina will replace Andrea Firenze as general manager of Covestro in Spain. Molina, who joined the German multinational in 2017, has been responsible for the group's plant in Tarragona since August 1st, a position he will combine with that of the group's top executive in the country.
Molina studied chemical engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and managed a factory in the Mexican city of Santa Clara before being appointed general manager of the company in the country.
The group has four factories in the Spanish market, all in Catalonia: Tarragona, Barcelona, Parets del Vallès, and Santa Margarida i els Monjos. Currently, it plans the construction of a new chlorine plant in Tarragona, a distillation plant in Barcelona, and the integration of the two work centers in Parets and Santa Margarida.
Frank Torres
Indra's Chief Operating Officer
The industrial and defense group Indra has also made profound changes to its leadership and operational structure. These changes are part of the company's strategy reformulation process, which is set to present a new strategic plan on November 25th.
Five executives linked to the Ángel Escribano era have left the group: Manuel Ausaverri, until now chief strategy officer; Manuel Escalante, chief technology officer; Antonio Mora, general manager of organization; Juan Pedro Rodríguez, general manager of international, and Miguel Ángel Panduro, general manager of the subsidiary Indra Space.
As part of the restructuring, Frank Torres is leaving his previous positions within the company and will be the new chief operating officer. In parallel, David Santos will be the new technical secretary and Miguel Forteza remains at the head of the financial control and management area, which includes the unit specializing in mergers and acquisitions.
Furthermore, Indra's CEO, Josep Maria Recasens, will interimly assume the general management of strategy, technology, and products while the multinational finds a new executive to fill this position.
Amparo Moraleda
Chairwoman of the Airbus Board of Directors
The former president of IBM in Spain and former vice president of CaixaBank is, as of this Thursday, the first female chair of the board of directors of the European aerospace consortium Airbus, just as it had already been announced in April. Moraleda has been a member of the Airbus board since 2015 and will replace René Obermann, who will leave his seat on the board in 2027.
The Spaniard assumed the presidency on the day that the indefinite strike of Airbus's 15,000 workers in Spain was called off.
Xavier Pont
General Manager of Kern Pharma
The Catalan pharmaceutical company Kern Pharma has announced the appointment of Xavier Pont as the company's new general manager. In his new role, Pont will lead the management and strategic priorities of Kern Pharma, with the goal of driving growth and strengthening the consolidation of the project in this new stage.
The executive joins Kern Pharma with more than 30 years of professional experience linked to business consulting, having developed his career as a partner at Deloitte, where he led the life sciences and healthcare sector. The company frames his appointment as a management reinforcement to advance the sustainable development of the business, in coordination with the management committee and the teams. The company closed 2025 with a turnover of 362 million euros and currently has a workforce exceeding one thousand employees.
Diego Ferrao
Audax CFO
The energy group Audax, led by businessman José Elías, has appointed Diego Ferrao as the new Chief Financial Officer of the group. In this position, he will lead the company's financial organization and work with the management team on the execution of the 2026-2030 strategic plan. Ferrao has 20 years of experience in financial management, advisory on corporate operations, auditing, and business transformation in international organizations with a presence in Europe, the United States, and North Africa.
Throughout his professional career, he has held various positions of responsibility in multinational companies such as DuPont and Perrigo, where he has led international financial teams.
Eduardo Linaje
Director of decorative paints for AkzoNobel in Spain and Portugal
The Dutch paint manufacturer AkzoNobel has Eduardo Linaje as the new director of the decorative paints division for the Iberian market, which encompasses Spain and Portugal. Linaje has worked at the company since 2011 and in recent years has held the position of marketing director for Iberia.
Thus, José Antonio Jiménez, who was provisionally leading the division that Linaje will now head, resumes his previous duties as director of the commercial unit for Southern and Central Europe, which encompasses 17 different countries.
Daniel Jiménez Díaz
Director of the Barcelona branch of Enlaza (Grupo AZA)
Daniel Jiménez Díaz will be the new director of the Barcelona branch of Enlaza, a subsidiary of Grupo AZA, dedicated to the distribution of palletized goods. Specifically, Enlaza has specialized in the urgent transport of pallets on a national scale.
Currently, the company covers a hundred routes and a fleet of one thousand vehicles including trailers, mega-trailers, platform trucks, and low-emission units. With this appointment, the group seeks to turn the Catalan capital into a strategic point for route optimization, according to a company statement.
The executive had held positions of responsibility at Decathlon in Zaragoza and Barcelona before moving to DHL, a German logistics and shipping multinational, at the Barcelona distribution center. Later, he was logistics director at Circontrol.
Sandra Marimon
Purchasing Director at Rajapack
The Iberian subsidiary of Rajapack, based in Ripollet, has appointed Sandra Marimon as the new purchasing and product director for Spain and Portugal. With more than a decade of experience in similar roles, and some related to the development of growth and profitability strategies, Marimon joins the Italian packaging and supplies multinational with the goal of "optimizing supplier management, strengthening the efficiency and profitability of operations, and contributing to the growth of the business".
Paulo Moraes
Deputy Director of MAN Truck & Bus Iberia
MAN Truck & Bus Iberia, a subsidiary of the German truck and bus manufacturer MAN, has incorporated Paulo Moraes as the new deputy managing director to support Stéphane de Creisquer, the current managing director of the company in Spain and Portugal, who will hand over the position to him in June of next year.
Brazilian by birth, Moraes studied production engineering at the University of São Paulo and earned a master's degree in engineering management at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia. He has two decades of experience in the industrial vehicle sector and has worked for much of his career at Scania.