José María Álvarez-Pallete is named Business Person of the Year 2022 by the UPF Barcelona School of Management

•    Over a hundred leaders of the country’s top companies and institutions attended the award ceremony.

•    The Rector of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Laia de Nadal, presented the awarded, highlighting the executive’s role as a “catalyst for change” who “drives initiatives that go way beyond traditional management”.

•    José María Álvarez-Pallete emphasized the importance of the new digital age: “Technology is going to help us solve problems that previously had no solution. We are living in an extraordinary time that poses unprecedented challenges. Europe needs to retrain its professionals on a massive scale. There is nothing better than a company that trains its own people, because it enables talent to be generated, while also boosting competitiveness. At Telefónica, we have the biggest internal retraining plan in Europe, with more than 16,000 employees trained”.

The UPF Barcelona School of Management (UPF-BSM) presented its Business Person of the Year Award 2022 to the Executive President of Telefónica, José María Álvarez-Pallete, in recognition of the sustainable transformation that the multinational has led and its key role in the global technological green transition. In the previous edition, the award was given to José Ignacio Goirigolzarri, the President of CaixaBank, in recognition of his leadership throughout the merger with Bankia.

““At UPF-BSM, we firmly believe that professionals are educated through academia, but also, and equally importantly, by the example set by role models and the values they share." pointed out José Manuel Martínez-Sierra, director general of the UPF-BSM. 

And he added "This award is presented in recognition of the work of the great business executives who have excelled to extraordinary heights without losing sight of the values that define us. In this respect, Álvarez-Pallete is a clear role model for the leaders of the future we are training to follow, whose goal is to build a better world”.

At the ceremony, held at the business school’s campus in Barcelona, Álvarez-Pallete was presented the award by the Rector of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Laia de Nadal, who took the opportunity to highlight the executive’s innovative nature. “He has driven initiatives that go way beyond traditional management, prioritizing digital inclusion and reducing the technological gap in the communities in which his company operates. In short, he is a catalyst for change”, she emphasized. 

The Rector also underlined that the executive’s vision and philosophy are perfectly aligned with the management model advocated by the UPF itself, which has made the institution “a pioneer in obtaining the leading institutional accreditations”, as well as ensuring its position in “various international rankings”. 
In his acceptance speech, the President of Telefónica emphasized the importance of the new digital age: “Technology is going to help us solve problems that previously had no solution. We are living in an extraordinary time that poses unprecedented challenges. 85% of the professions that there will be in 2030 do not even exist yet.

Europe needs to retrain its professionals on a massive scale. There is nothing better that a company that trains its own people, because it enables talent to be generated, while also boosting competitiveness. At Telefónica, we have the biggest internal retraining plan in Europe, with more than 16,000 employees trained”.

Álvarez-Pallete shared his view of Barcelona as a world capital of the telecommunications sector: “I have always said and will continue to say that there is nowhere better for us to hold our Congress, which is we always argue that its should be held here. Without a doubt, it is now the epicenter and symbolic flagship of communications and innovation at an international level”.

A carreer full of achievements

The President of the UPF-BSM and former Rector of the UPF, Jaume Casals, went on to give a speech outlining the award-winner’s achievements.

Casals described Álvarez-Pallete as “one of the great executive of recent times"

“He has managed to lead one of the most spectacular sustainable transformation and modernization processes of the last 15 years, transforming Telefónica into a global multinational with an especially significant presence in countries such as Brazil, the United Kingdom and Germany”, explained the Professor. 

Casals also emphasized that “since Álvarez-Pallete took over as the Executive President of the multinational in 2016, it has clearly refocused its strategy towards the digitization of society and boosting connectivity, without losing sight of sustainability and keeping people as the key pillars of its strategy”. The President of the UPF-BSM added that the case of Telefónica is “an example of the transformation of an analogue company into a digital one”. 

Another achievement highlighted by Casals was that the company had been a “leader in the rollout of 5G connectivity technology in Spain, particularly in rural regions”, which represents a “fundamental advance in terms of improving people’s lives”. He also remarked that Telefónica “holds the top spot among the 12 global telecommunications companies evaluated in the Digital Rights ranking, being the only one to carry out impact assessments with respect to human rights in all the areas taken into consideration in the ranking”. 

Casals wanted to thank Álvarez-Pallete personally for his and his team’s efforts, day after day, to build a better world in which technology, sustainability, people, education and commitment to those in need are at the heart of decision-making.

Álvarez-Pallete said that he was collecting this award on behalf of each and every one of the 100,000 employees who work for the company around the world, whom he described as “giants who are getting ready to celebrate the first 100 years of Telefónica, giants who are increasingly younger all the time. 100,000 people who want to make our world more human by connecting people’s lives”.

Lastly, José María Álvarez-Pallete brought his speech to a close with an emotional memory about his father: “He told me that, when you look back, what you should see is a straight line. Although there are times when life is an uphill struggle, it is important to look back and see that we have lived in accordance with our values. The history of Telefónica is a story of straight lines, lines we should be proud of, lines built by many people. It is our duty to carry this line on and project it into the future. We are the engine of societies and that is a big responsibility that we have embraced proudly for 100 years now”.