Relief without surprises (and with many challenges) at the helm of Barcelona Global. More than 200 partners gathered at the World Trade Center at the entity's annual general assembly have chosen Josep Lluís Sanfeliu as the new president for the next two years. The co-founder and managing partner of Asabys Partners has assumed the responsibility, setting challenges and priorities, which include talent, science, and three conditions for living in Barcelona: housing, mobility, and security.
Sanfeliu takes over from Damm's director, Ramon Agenjo, after two years in office —as established by the association's statutes: two-year non-renewable presidencies—, and has acceded to the position at Agenjo's proposal and with the unanimous support of the assembly.
"We must protect what Barcelona has, improve what doesn't work, attract what we need, and retain what we cannot lose," the new president defended before the partners. According to Sanfeliu, the city has the opportunity to consolidate itself as "a place where talent finds purpose, capital finds projects, science finds solutions, and ideas find execution."
To achieve this goal, the new president has defined five lines of work. The first encompasses what he considers to be the city's major challenges now, which he has prioritized into three: the necessary conditions for living in Barcelona —housing, security, and mobility, according to him—, maintaining the city as a hub for science and technology, and positioning it in the field of entertainment understood broadly, including major sporting events, museums, theater, music, and new ways in which he advocates for the city to continue positioning itself: "This industry will take longer to automate with AI, and it is a safe space for the city to work," he anticipated.
The association will work with experts to break down all these challenges and address them in detail, from housing to technology and entertainment —or experience economy, as Sanfeliu put it—. But these three challenges are only one of the five pillars on which his mandate will pivot: he will also focus on the axis of talent, the attraction of investments, and also the social axis and the one aimed at ensuring optimal internal functioning of the association.
For these axes, Barcelona Global already has tools, such as Barcelona & Partners, the agency promoted by the association in 2021 to attract international business projects —facilitator, among others, of the landing of the British OQC in the city—. These investments, according to Sanfeliu, contribute to "generating new opportunities for the talent of the future".
This talent is essential for the association, which has a wide range of professionals from different backgrounds, sectors, ages, and fields. In fact, as the director, Mercè Conesa, has detailed, the entity currently has 1,238 members —and a budget of 2.5 million euros—, 15% of whom were born outside Spain, and 120 integrated into its International Council, who live and work abroad but do so with a strong connection to Barcelona.
In this sense, Sanfeliu has highlighted what he has defined as the "talent cycle" that occurs in the association: it has professionals from when they leave university until the culmination of their professional career. The entity, however, places special emphasis on these first years, through the Barcelona 2040 program, through which some 250 professionals under 35 years old have passed.
In this mandate of Sanfeliu, the social axis also emerges, and the new president warns of the importance of society being balanced, also when it comes to attracting international investments. Through this axis, moreover, the entity wants to contribute to channeling the social sensitivity of its members towards entities that work in the city but may be unknown to its members —especially international ones—.
In fact, Sanfeliu's career is closely linked to the areas he will now place at the center of the association's agenda. The commitment to science and technology stems from his experience at Asabys Partners, and in the Barcelona Global Life Sciences Chapter, which he also chairs. Likewise, his relationship with Barcelona in a broad sense goes beyond the business sphere, from his years as a tourist guide and Olympic volunteer to his participation in social and cultural entities in the city.
Now, he stands at the head of Barcelona Global after two years in which the entity has made strong commitments to areas such as life sciences, climate resilience, and young talent, as Conesa highlighted, taking stock of the mandate that is now closing. The next one will be led by Sanfeliu as president, with an executive committee of 20 members that includes both new faces and profiles from the previous mandate.
It will have three vice-presidents, who will be Rafael Fontana, honorary president of Cuatrecasas; Lluís Seguí, co-founder and CEO of Miura Partners, and Carmina Ganyet, corporate general director of Colonial, while Héctor Bros will continue as secretary and Mercè Conesa will remain at the head of the general management of the association in this stage of new challenges.