Oscar Pierre and Enric Asunción will participate in May in the Cercle d'Economia conferences

The Cercle d'Economia announced this Tuesday the names of the first speakers already confirmed for the annual meeting to be held between May 4 and 6 at the W Hotel in Barcelona. After the success of the 2021 event, the conferences of the lobby of executives, businessmen, and academics led by Javier Faus will once again take place in the Catalan capital, definitively closing the long period of celebration in Sitges.

The XXXVII meeting of the Cercle d'Economia will have as its motto The moment of Europe. Political hope, strategic autonomy and will focus on the current geopolitical situation, marked by the war in Ukraine, the unstoppable rise in energy prices, and supply problems. Although outside the official program, the big topic of conversation in the corridors of the W Hotel will be the change in the institution's presidency, scheduled for next summer and which, for the first time, could lead the entity's more than 1,250 members to go to the polls. Unless an agreement is reached, there are currently two candidates to replace Javier Faus, breaking the tradition of renewing the leadership every three years with a single consensus candidate.

In an unprecedented scenario in its more than 60 years of history, the former CEO of Banco Sabadell, Jaume Guardiola, and Rosa Cañadas, head of the Tanja Foundation and president of the securities firm Trea Capital Partners, are vying to preside over the Cercle d'Economia.

As usual, the conferences next May will be inaugurated by the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, and will be attended by other political leaders such as the First Vice President of the Government, Nadia Calviño, and the Minister of Economy of the Generalitat, Jaume Giró. In the current context of marked international uncertainty, the Cercle meeting will feature the experience of former Ministers of Foreign Affairs Javier Solana and Josep Piqué. Energy concern, a top business priority, will also be at the center of the debate with the participation of Ignacio Galán (Iberdrola), Antoni Llardén (Enagas) and Josu Jon Imaz (Repsol). Industry 4.0 will also be given prominence, with the intervention of the CEO of Seat and Cupra, Wayne Griffiths, and the delegate of the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona, Pere Navarro.

Another of the star sessions is reserved for the entrepreneurial ecosystem and for the unicorns ---start-ups valued at more than one billion euros--- born in Barcelona. Thus, the founders of Glovo, Oscar Pierre, and of the listed company Wallbox, Enric Asunción, will participate in the conference, accompanied by the Israeli professor Manuel Trajtenberg.

There will also be a debate on covid-19 and how it has affected us as a society, how the business world has to adapt to the new reality and how it can be part of the solution. The presidents of CEOE, Indra, Cellnex and KPMG, Antonio Garamendi, Marc Murtra, Tobias Martinez and Juanjo Cano, respectively, will debate this new paradigm. Other confirmed speakers are Anna Navarro (Procore Technologies) and Alejandro Blanco (Spanish Olympic Committee).

At the meeting, the second Cercle d'Economia Award for European Construction will be awarded to Ursula Von der Leyen, President of the European Commission.