The 10 most read interviews of the year: Barcelona explained in first person

The interview is, probably, the journalistic genre that best resists the test of time. It doesn't just explain what happens, but who makes it happen, and in the first person. It represents a costly gamble for any media —although many generative AIs promise us otherwise—, but it provides invaluable value: it allows combining the perspectives that think, build, and transform the city, and giving each one time and space to express themselves individually. And thus, together, we can begin to draw a plural and enriching narrative of Barcelona.

And this year's most-read interviews confirm this commitment. Those that have generated the most interest are, in fact, those that have best connected with the city's debates, concerns, and challenges.

Ten interviews, ten people, and ten ways of understanding Barcelona, from business to culture, from research to politics, from local commerce to leadership. This is the ranking of the 10 most-read interviews of the year in The New Barcelona Post: a choral portrait of the city explained in the first person.

Let's give way to the protagonists.

1. The craft of Joan Font: "Doing business is generating wealth and playing fair"

While it is true that it is not published in interview format, it is in its essence. The first interview in the ranking was conducted by Víctor Costa in a session ofTrue Leaders, organized byThe New Barcelona Postand EY. A privileged interview, in fact, becauseJoan Font, one of the great businessmen of Catalonia, "is rarely seen in public" and even less interviewed, but when he is, there is no room for indifference.

The founder, general director and president of Grup Bon Preu shares his strategy, his purpose and his vision on Administration, on absenteeism, on competition and, above all, on being an entrepreneur and building a company. Víctor Costa extracts some of these reflections: "Being an entrepreneur is doing and measuring what is done, not talking about it." "Building a company is generating wealth, playing fair and thinking long-term." And one more: "Whoever has the maximum responsibility is the one who has the obligation to decide, and growing means not making mistakes when making certain decisions."

2. Elisabet Casanovas: "Every time I premiere a play, I dedicate a performance to my mother"

From business to culture. With one of the most recognizable faces on screen in Catalonia and a Bitter Kas to pair with the conversation. For Elisabet Casanovas, the series Merlí placed her very young on the map of Catalan actresses with the greatest projection, and ten years later she has accumulated a lot of theater, cinema and television behind her, although there are still people who call her Tània on the street. The interview is signed by journalist Cristina Puig, who achieves a direct, fresh and honest conversation that ends up bringing some tears to the actress.

3. Dani Clará (Rosa Clará): "I want to continue innovating without losing the DNA"

We return to an atypical interview: a conversation for three. Between Mar Galtés —interviewer—, Rosa Clará and her son, Dani Clará. The wedding dress brand present in 83 countries around the world, through 4,000 points of sale, is led by Rosa Clará, its founder and owner, and not long ago also by her son, Dani Clará.

She, "a strong, sweet and passionate woman, who has kept quite away from the spotlight, although she has not always been able to," has begun a certain de-escalation within the company; while he is taking over a business in full expansion, with large volumes of investment and a clear objective: "My desire is to continue innovating without losing the DNA. I believe that the best thing my mother has done is the brand identity."

4. Camino Quiroga: "We are here only to help each other"

Camino Quiroga is a notary, "but she could have been a pianist or an orchestra conductor." In 2015, she co-founded the Diagonal 490 notary office and is currently secretary of the board of directors of the Cercle d'Economia and a professor at ICAB. Víctor Costa interviews her and, together, they humanize the notary's profession, which "is like the pharmacist, the judge or the priest. That trusted person to tell your life to and find solutions," she claims. In fact, from the notary office, she helps people fulfill their dreams, from getting married to starting a business or buying a house.

A conversation about childhood, the notary profession, gender parity, life, Barcelona, the Cercle d'Economia and about music and art, which culminates with a life motto: "We are here only to help each other".

5. Laureano Molins: "Cancer is cured with research"

In the fifth interview on the podium of the most read of the year, the world of research enters with thoracic surgeon Laureano Molins, one of the leading experts in lung cancer. He, who ruled out linking himself to the family business Molins, has had hundreds of patients in his hands throughout his career, including one he operated on for a lung nodule in 2010 and for whom he is still remembered: Juan Carlos I.

Molins, who "has taken his commitment beyond the operating room," with the Lung Ambition Alliance project, the Associació Contra el Càncer in Barcelona and the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC), reviews with Anna Badia the advances in research in recent years and, above all, those to come. An interview with figures, clear strategies and an indisputable goal: "to achieve a survival rate of 70%." The route to get there? "More research".

6. Nacho Corredor and Adrian Jofre: "To be able to win the debates in Madrid, you have to be able to win first from Barcelona"

Poco después de publicar su libroPublic Incidence. Power in the 21st Century, the partners and vice presidents of beBartletNacho Corredor and Adrian Jofre they sat down with Guillem Carol —who knows them and the company well— to talk about the growth and strategy of the consultancy, the importance of public advocacy, the power of trust and, above all, the Barcelona-Madrid binomial.

Both grew up in Barcelona, but currently live in Madrid, from where they run the consultancy, which since 2024 also has an office in Barcelona. And while Carol dissects them —"One is intuitive and expansive, the other is methodical and reserved", "one knows the public world better than anyone, while the other comes from the private world"— they move comfortably in the sometimes controversial comparison between Barcelona and Madrid. And they do so by comparing the logic of their business elites and their biases, their productive fabrics, the construction of public policies in one city and the other, the incidence of public power in the citizen debate… and they draw a clear conclusion: "Barcelona will only triumph if the world looks at Barcelona".

7. Josep Tabernero: "If we do things well, 30% of tumors can be avoided"

And research returns, and the fight against cancer. On the occasion of theBarcelona Science Week organized byThe New Barcelona Post, journalist Cristina Marin interviewedJosep Tabernero, head of the Medical Oncology Service at Vall d'Hebron Hospital, director of the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) and head of the Cancer Molecular Therapy Research Unit at Vall d'Hebron. An interview in which cancer is looked at head-on and with more courage than in the past. "We were afraid of it, but nowadays it is openly discussed," explains Tabernero. The doctor also takes advantage of any question to remind us that cancer can be prevented, that we could save many deaths, while also focusing on all the research that remains to be done and the resources that must be allocated to it.

And of course, there is his view on Barcelona and its scientific ecosystem, with a mix of good and bad: he highlights the good positioning of the healthcare system and the high quality of the medical and research academy, Barcelona's good healthcare network with connections throughout the territory, and the city's high attractiveness. However, that is not enough: political and administrative stability is lacking, as is more funding.

8. Manel del Castillo's giraffe leadership: "Humanism makes us different"

"Leaders must be giraffes: people with a long view and attention, good relationships with everyone, who don't sleep too much and have a very big heart." This is the advice Víctor Costa extracts from his interview with Manel del Castillo, managing director of Hospital Sant Joan de Déu. A leadership, that of giraffes, which also has a lot to do with the letter C, "and that means cause, knowledge, compassion, commitment and collaboration."

"Giraffe leaders must inspire and build narratives that generate commitment with the team and society. I still have more dreams than memories," says Castillo in an inspiring conversation in which he advocates the urgency of reforming the healthcare system and shares the history of Hospital Sant Joan de Déu; a trajectory that reminds us that the phoenix knows how to rise from its own ashes.

9. Anna Gener: "Beauty is not subjective"

Beauty, so difficult to define, sometimes suggestive and elusive, far from being frivolous or accessory, plays a fundamental role in our lives and in our civilization. It gives us the opportunity "to be suspended in something greater than ourselves" and strongly impacts our brain; "it provides us with well-being." This is how Anna Gener contemplates and describes it in her first book On Beauty: Notes on Art, Architecture, and Cities, an invitation —she acknowledges— for people "to expose themselves to beauty and its surprising power."

An interview deeply rooted in the city of Barcelona, like Anna Gener herself, who reflects on the beauty of the city and our ability to open our eyes and invites us to relate to spaces from another perspective: "The dynamics of the 21st century force us to go fast, and that goes against being able to enjoy beauty in all its fullness."

10. Rafa Serra: "La Llibreria Sant Jordi proves that Barcelona has a solution"

A few weeks before the much-talked-about reopening of the Sant Jordi bookstore, writer and consultant Jordi Cabré had a conversation with the person who led the salvation of the bookstore, "an emblematic establishment of the city that seemed lost," Rafa Serra. He had already done so in the past with Espai Quera, and now he has done so with Librería Sant Jordi, preventing "a closure that was a foregone conclusion."

Serra's message is that, if creativity is found to update business models towards more viable formulas, traditional spaces have a future in Barcelona. And he has done so, through three main axes: the bookstore as such, the tasting area, and an activity license model —Cultura Viva— that allows for a minimum of 40 cultural activities per year, such as dinners, colloquiums, presentations… In the interview, it is understood why the launch of the bookstore has achieved such success in the city; a success that reminds us and proves "that Barcelona has a solution."