The previous number two Telefónica, José María Álvarez-Pallete, 52, was named chief executive Friday Spanish telecommunications giant , with the order to make a successful digital revolution thanks to its profile technophile.
the board of Directors of Telefónica approved unanimously in Madrid choosing Alvarez-Pallete to replace Cesar Alierta, who had 16 years at the helm of the company.
at 70, Alierta proposed that its chief executive officer to succeed him at the head of Telefonica, one of the top five players in the world in the telecommunications sector.
in his first speech, the new president promised to respect “the Telefónica’s growth strategy and business and financial targets announced to the market last February,” the company said in a statement. In addition, “takes on the challenge of capturing the full potential offered by the digital revolution.”
Its main task will be to continue developing high added value, such as fiber or 4G, a company that keeps getting benefits but in late 2015 launched a plan of voluntary redundancies among its employees.
“it is a person who comes from the world of finance, but is very interested in technology issues,” he told the AFP Jose Luis Paniagua, delegate of the General Union of Workers (UGT, one of the two major unions in Spain) in the company.
“has always been commissioned to convey new trends in the company” he added, considering that, in addition to their professional potential, Alvarez-Pallete owes much of its success to Alierta. “He who brought him to Telefónica and gave him the opportunity to travel and prepare for a future promotion was,” said Paniagua.
The executive had been signed by the group as CFO of its international branch in 1999 a year before Alierta became president. He was slowly climbing stairs, to enter the board of directors in 2006 as general manager and later president for Latin America. In 2011, he was appointed CEO of the European branch of Telefónica and promoted a year later to number two in the group.
– Digital Revolution –
At the end of 2015, the group recorded net profit fell 8.5%, to 2,750 million euros. In the fourth quarter, Telefonica had to make an important funding, 2,600 million euros, mainly to finance the adjustment of staff.
Currently, the group recorded a turnover of over 47,000 million euros, it is present in 21 countries and has more than 332 million customers. But it also has the challenge of reducing its huge debt of nearly 50,000 million euros at the end of 2015.
The economic crisis and the heavy debt, led the group to refocus its activity on a limited number of markets . Spain, Germany and Latin America
the new president, who speaks Spanish, English, French and Portuguese, will have to try to reverse the negative trend in Brazil, during the economic recession and shaken by a serious political crisis.
Born in Madrid in 1963, Alvarez-Pallete is a man of the house with 17 years of experience. Fond of new technologies, the new president also founded Wayra accelerator emerging companies Telefonica.
In the statement announcing his appointment, the company qualified for this father of three very active children in social networks as “more managerial prepared to successfully face the challenges of the digital revolution.”
His addiction to new technologies put in trouble in 2011: a report of public television showed him playing a video game on your tablet during a shareholders’ meeting, just as the group was preparing a plan to remove 8,500 jobs.
His promotion is part of progressive generational change of managers of large Spanish groups. Ana Patricia Botin in 2014 had taken the reins of Banco Santander (Amsterdam: 817651.AS – news), Europe’s biggest bank by market capitalization, after the death of his father, Emilio Botin, 79. Pablo Isla happened in 2011 the founder of Inditex (Amsterdam: IT6.AS – news), Amancio Ortega, now 81, under the command of Spanish textile giant, owner of Zara, among other firms (Other OTC: UBGXF – news) .
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