Criteria continues to reorganize its leadership and other signings of the week

BarcelonaCriteriaCaixa, the investment holding company of the La Caixa group, continues its reshuffle at the top. Since the dismissal of Àngel Simón as Isidre Fainé's right-hand man was announced last week, there has been a steady stream of new developments at the company. Now it's José María Méndez's turn, who will become the company's new CEO. Furthermore, former La Vanguardia editor Màrius Carol and former FC Barcelona executive Gerard Guiu have joined the board of Movistar+, and the Catalan government has appointed a new Director General of Industry.

José María Méndez, new CEO of Criteria

The executive committee of CriteriaCaixa's board of directors has appointed José María Méndez as the company's new CEO. Until now, Méndez was deputy to CEO Ángel Simón, who was dismissed last week. The new senior official will be responsible for the holding company's operational management. He will also report to its executive committee, chaired by Isidro Fainé, who also chairs the La Caixa Foundation, of which Francisco Reynés has been appointed first vice chairman. Reynés thus fills Simón's vacancy as a board member and also maintains his position as executive chairman of Naturgy, one of Criteria's main holdings.

The other members of this executive committee are José Antonio Asiaín and Marcos Contreras. CriteriaCaixa's executive committee has also appointed Adolfo Feijóo as deputy general manager.

Méndez Álvarez-Cedrón (Lugo, 1966) holds degrees in law, political science, and administration, and is a civil servant on leave from the Superior Corps of Civil Administrators of the State. He was recently appointed as a director of CaixaBank, representing the La Caixa Banking Foundation. He was general manager of CECA, the entity that brought together the savings banks and chaired by Fainé, as well as CEO of CecaBank until this April. He previously held various positions in the General Directorate of the Treasury and Financial Policy of the Ministry of Economy (1993-2003).

A former director of 'La Vanguardia' and a former senior official of FC Barcelona, ​​​​new directors of Movistar+

Telefónica's chairman, Marc Murtra, continues to make changes to the structure of the company he has led since the beginning of the year. This time, he has renewed the board of directors of Movistar+ with the appointment of Màrius Carol, former director ofThe Vanguard, and Gerard Guiu, a former senior official at FC Barcelona who was Director of Institutional Relations and Communication at the Círculo de Economía until August 2021, according to reports The Confidential.

According to this media, Carol and Guiu replace the Sevillian investor Iván Bohórquez and the lawyer Daniel García Pita, present on several boards of directors of listed companies in the Ibex-35. Regarding these changes, the company assures that they do not have to be communicated to the CNMV but that they will be communicated through the BORME shortly.

Xavier Roca, new general director of Industry of the Generalitat

The Catalan Government's Ministry of Business and Employment has appointed Xavier Roca as the new Director General of Industry, replacing Oriol Alcoba, the government announced in a statement following Tuesday's Executive Council meeting. Until now, he served as the rector's delegate of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) on the Terrassa campus (Barcelona) and as director of the UPC School of Industrial, Aerospace and Audiovisual Engineering on the same campus.

Alcoba had been appointed in 2022 and has left the position to return to Esade, where he was general manager of Esade Creapolis from 2017 to 2022. Roca, for his part, holds a doctorate in industrial engineering from the UPC, specializing in construction processes and with a technical and scientific career. Until now, he was the director of the School of Industrial, Aerospace and Audiovisual Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Terrassa, and the UPC rector's delegate for the creation of the new medical degree.

Lactalis appoints new general manager

Lactalis, one of the leading companies in the dairy sector in Spain and Portugal, has appointed David Saliot as its new general manager for Spain and Portugal, the region in which the company leads the sector, within the framework of the project One Iberia, "an organizational evolution that seeks to consolidate and deepen collaboration between teams in both countries," the company explains in a statement.

David Saliot has over 25 years of experience within the group. He began his career in France and later joined Lactalis Nestlé as General Manager in Portugal, and later as Head of Southern Europe. He then led Lactalis Puleva in Spain for six years and, for the past year, has served as General Manager of Lactalis Spain, where he leads the internal collaboration project. One Spain.

Arantxa Sanz, new general director of CATALONIA.HEALTH

CATALONIA.HEALTH, the entity representing companies in the healthcare and life sciences sector in Catalonia, has announced the appointment of Arantxa Sanz as its CEO. With a PhD in chemistry from the University of Nottingham and a degree in physics from the Autonomous University of Madrid, Sanz has extensive complementary training in research management and institutional leadership, and in regulation and market access for medical devices. Her professional career has spanned research institutions such as the Center for Mathematical Research (CRM) and the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC).

With over two decades of experience in research, knowledge transfer, and scientific policy advocacy, Arantxa Sanz has developed her career in both companies and leading research institutions, such as the Center for Mathematical Research (CRM) and the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC). She has also played a leading role in promoting open science and coordinating inter-institutional units to address cross-cutting challenges such as artificial intelligence applied to the life sciences and public health, as part of the strategic plans to which she has contributed.