Paco Solé and the "intellectual honesty" that amazed Botín

BarcelonaFrancesc Solé Parellada, Paco, as his friends called him, left a void in the Catalan and Spanish academic, business, and gastronomic world on June 19th.A legacy that was evident this Wednesday at the tribute to his life organized by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the CYD Foundation – a foundation dedicated to promoting and analyzing the Spanish university system, co-founded in 2002 by Solé – where more than one hundred people attended, including his personal friends. The president of Banco Santander and president of the Knowledge and Development Foundation (CYD), Ana Botín, was in charge of the closing remarks. The banker met Solé in 2002, when, together with Francesc Santacana, they proposed the idea for what is now the Foundation. She was amazed and quickly convinced: "Paco managed to be a bridge between very different fields that initially didn't understand each other, such as business and universities, or innovation and culture," Botín emphasized.

"At the bank, I battle bureaucracy all day long, but when I sat down with Paco one day and he showed me the organizational charts of Spanish universities, my job seemed easy," she said, making the university sector laugh. "He was a man of great intellectual honesty, which for me is fundamental; he had unwavering integrity," Botín emphasized. "In Catalonia, in Spain, and in Europe, we have the talent, we have many things, and we're no less stupid than the Americans. So why are companies created here, and when they start to grow, they move to the US? This starts with the university. Paco understood this clearly: we are making his vision of the potential of Spanish universities a reality," the banker asserted.

The Three-Dimensional Man

Solé was a multifaceted man. He was an engineer, economist, professor at the UPC (Polytechnic University of Catalonia), a driving force behind cultural projects, and a tireless advocate for Catalan cuisine and its values. "To define his method, we should use a word he adored: thinking. Thinking with a will to act. From this emerged many transformative ideas that propelled the UPC and, by extension, the Spanish university system. If today our university is known for its outstanding work in knowledge transfer, it is partly thanks to Paco's efforts."

He was known and loved in the business world, the academic world, and also in the culinary world. When describing him, Xavier Marcet, founder and president of the Barcelona Drucker Society, stated that Solé was "a man who could inspire without losing his smile; he was consistent without being arrogant, a wise man with his feet firmly on the ground." And he was also "kind," because "kindness is the ultimate stage of great wisdom," Marcet continued, adding that Paco spoke with tenderness about his wife, Susana Sánchez Galve. Sònia Martínez, director of the CYD Foundation, where Solé was a professor, recalled that his classes were "an inexhaustible source of knowledge." "He was ahead of his time," she affirmed. Joaquim Boixareu, president of the UPC Social Council, described Solé as "a great Catalan businessman": at the helm of the century-old Restaurante 7 Portes, "Paco was there for 54 years, from the age of twenty-seven," Boixareu recalled, emphasizing that the restaurant in Pla de Palau "employs 100 people. It has been managed, along with Susana, with an engineering mindset, both in terms of methods and processes."

Solé had stolen the hearts of restaurateurs. "Going out to eat with him was great fun," recalled Javier Roglá, Global Director of People and Talent and Global Director of Universities at Banco Santander, "because everyone knew who Paco was in any restaurant, and they got nervous because they wanted to make a good impression."

As part of the tribute, his family and friends have published a book of anecdotes about Solé. Capture a memoryJavier Monzón, president of the Executive Committee of the CYD Foundation, encouraged attendees to read: "Even if it's not from Planeta, buy it anyway," a comment that drew laughter from the audience, including José Creuheras, president of Planeta, who laughed heartily from the front row. In addition to Creuheras and the speakers, attendees also included former president of the Generalitat, José Montilla; businessman Joaquim Gay de Montellà; Rosa Mayordomo, secretary of the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition, and its vice president, Joan Font; and dozens of family members, friends, and other guests.