this generation x Spanish reaches the pinnacle of large international companies. Javier Oliván López was born in 1977 in Jaca and grew up in the neighboring town of Sabiñánigo. Meta’s new number two, Maximum support of Facebook’s parent company and founder Mark Zuckerberg. Oliván has been a Californian by adoption since arriving at Stanford to complete his MBA in Electrical and Industrial Engineering, which he studied in Navarra. at a North American university and with a Rafael del Pino Foundation scholarship, I met Zuckerbergat the time it used Facebook as a social network for universities.
Oliván, who could not get on, your own Spanish social network (Nosuni) urged Zuckerberg to internationalize his company. The founder of Facebook paid attention to him and hired the Spanish executive who almost fifteen years ago switched mountaineering in the Pyrenees to surfing on the beaches of Santa Cruz. His meteoric career within the company landed him #2 on Meta, replacing Sheryl Sandberg.
A contemporary of Oliván is another Spanish ruler. Nicolás de Ros Wallace from AlicanteBorn in 1975 and appointed as the new CEO of the German high competition bicycle manufacturer Canyon. The manager joined the pedal group from Nike, where he developed a part of his professional career with positions in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He previously worked at Inditex and held different responsibility positions internationally, mainly in his business. Zara shoes and bags.
Olivan and Ros de Wallace are part of a dozen Spaniards who have made their way into the leadership of big bands. multinational companies, either at the top – as presidents or CEOs – or as number two. The two are the smallest of a group that has so far included corporate baby boomers from major pharmaceutical companies (Joaquín Duato, Johnson & Johnson; and Belén Garijo of Merck), airlines (Luis Gallego, IAG). beverage companies (Ramón Laguarta, Pepsico and Sol Daurella, Coca-Cola EuroPacific Partners), banks (José Viñals, Standard Chartered), insurance companies (Iñaki Ereño, Bupa – parent company of Sanitas – and Antonio Lorenzo, Scottish Widows) and BT groups (Enrique Lores, HP) and sports equipment (Bárbara Martín, Decathlon).
All these managers have a common outstanding academic record and a broad knowledge of languages. In general, they have a cosmopolitan profession, are determined, ambitious, flexible and not afraid to take calculated risks. With few exceptions, they reach the top by going through several positions in the same company and salaries are high ($1.5 million base salary for Duato, to which 2.6 million annual incentives and other long-term incentives of 12.3 million euros can be added). Although many have made their homes outside of Spain, they almost always maintain ties to their country of origin for family reasons. Thus, Olivan, the aforementioned number two of Meta, speaks English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish. He is married to a German woman whom he met while studying Erasmus in Munich and has two children.
Mireia Las Heras, a professor at the IESE business school, confirms that these cases show “as in the last two cases, talent has no boundaries, gender, place of origin and age.” Las Heras points out that twelve people work in a wide variety of activities, “because Spain as a country does not have a single specializationAs in India, for example, with technology”.
The Spanish group of directors grows if a lower echelon is included, such as those responsible for a business unit or geographic area of a company. This is the case with Natalia Berenguer (Danone general secretary) and Javier San Juan, president of L’Oréal in Latin America.