Pedro Fontana, new vice-president of Banco Sabadell

Partial reorganization of Banco Sabadell's board of directors following the resignation presented by the independent director and sole vice-chairman of the entity, Javier Echenique, who in 2022 would have completed twelve years in the position, the maximum allowed by law to be considered independent. Echenique has chosen not to exhaust this last year of his mandate and has left the bank's highest decision-making body, arguing that he currently has "other personal and professional commitments that demand his attention," as explained by the bank chaired by Josep Oliu to the CNMV.

Immediately, and after receiving a favorable report from the Appointments Committee, the entity's board of directors has appointed Pedro Fontana as the new vice-chairman. Fontana (Barcelona, 1952) has been an independent director of the entity since 2017 and a member of the Credit, Audit and Control, and Strategy and Sustainability committees. With a degree in Business Administration from Esade and an MBA from Harvard University, Fontana has extensive experience in the financial sector, where he was regional director of Banco del Comercio, general manager of Banca Mas Sardá, president of Banca Catalana, and general manager of BBVA in Catalunya between 2000 and 2009.

It so happens that he replaces Echenique, another financier who developed his professional career in the orbit of the former BBV and who also presided over Banco Guipuzcoano, an entity that was acquired by Sabadell in 2010.

Fontana is also a director of Fira de Barcelona, of the Indukern group, and president of the Fundació Cercle d'Economia, as well as president of the Association for the Progress of Management (APD) Catalonia Zone and a member of the board of trustees of the Barcelona Mobile World Capital Foundation. He was a key person in the organization of the Barcelona Olympic Games as general director of the organizing committee (COOB'92).

After leaving BBVA, Fontana became a person of maximum trust for lawyer Emilio Cuatrecasas by holding various positions of responsibility in his investment holding company, Emesa, of which he is executive vice president. Thus, he returned to the front line of management by becoming executive president in 2012 of the Áreas group, participated by Emesa and the French group Elior, of which Fontana also became a senior executive, first being appointed global head of its transport concession catering division and then deputy general manager, a position he held until 2018. Currently, Áreas belongs to the private equity fund PAI Partners, which in November 2019 once again backed Fontana by incorporating him into the board and appointing him president of the airport and station catering services group. Áreas maintains its global operational headquarters in Catalonia and recently opened new corporate offices in Esplugues de Llobregat.

Deulofeu, one of the architects of Cellnex

To fill the vacancy left on the board by Echenique, Sabadell has appointed Lluís Deulofeu as a new independent director. Deulofeu is the president of the new Cellnex Foundation and has been one of the architects of this successful telecommunications group, a spin-off from Abertis. A Superior Telecommunications Engineer from the UPC, Deulofeu (Barcelona, 1954) was director of technological services for the former highway company Acesa and was founder of Acesa Telecom, the germ of Cellnex.

Between 2000 and 2011, he worked at La Caixa as director of the entity's IT services (CTO) and president of the technology subsidiary Silk. In 2011, he returned to Abertis as general director of Resources and Efficiency, a position that led him to sit on the board of directors of companies such as Abertis Airports and the French highway group Sanef, of which he was general director. He was key in the birth of Cellnex, a company where he was a director between 2015 and 2018. Until last December, he held the position of deputy CEO of the group and has now been appointed president of the Cellnex Foundation, in addition to senior advisor of the listed telecommunications tower company. Deulofeu was already linked to Banco Sabadell until now, being part of the board of directors of Sabis, its technology and IT subsidiary.