This Tuesday, the board of directors of Telefónica approved the appointments of Solange Sobral and Alejandro Reynal as new directors of the company, replacing Juan Ignacio Cirac and Peter Erskine, respectively, who have submitted their resignation to "favor the renewal" of the maximum decision-making body of the company and also because the end of their mandates was approaching, the operator reported in a statement to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMC).
"The new incorporations respond to the constant process of renewal and strengthening of the company's corporate governance system and with them Telefónica advances in the application of the best national and international standards and recommendations, and even anticipates the most demanding requirements regarding gender diversity, effective equality and balanced representation of both sexes," says the company.
In that sense, Telefónica's board of directors will continue to be made up of 15 members, of which 40% are women, and will have a "vast majority" of independent directors.
The company has also decided to reduce the number of committees to four – compared to the previous six – to optimize the effectiveness of the board. Specifically, the Sustainability and Quality Commission and the Regulation and Institutional Affairs Commission will be integrated into a single one that will be called the Sustainability and Regulation Commission.
Telefónica has also eliminated the Strategy and Innovation Committee to enhance "the function of strategic definition and supervision of the board of directors", and the Appointments, Remuneration and Good Governance Committee, and the Audit and Control Committee, will be maintained, to which adds the Delegate Commission, of which the president of the company, José María Álvarez-Pallete, will be a part.
The changes in the company's management body have not taken into account, for the moment, representation of the company's last new large shareholder, the Saudi fund, STC, which with 4.9% of the capital could have demanded a position in the management body.
At the moment it has not done so, and according to what the fund's representatives in Madrid have said, they have no intention of doing so since their interest, also at the moment, in the company is financial. It remains to be seen if STC executes the derivatives worth 5% that it has contracted through Morgan Standley, which would place it as the owner of 9.9%. A percentage strong enough so that at that moment they already want to participate directly in the decision-making body, as long as the Spanish Government does not prevent it.
Solange Sobral has a degree in Computer Science from the Federal University of São Carlos (Brazil) and has a master's degree in Computer Science from the State University of Campinas (Brazil), Telefónica has detailed. In addition, she has around 25 years of experience in the CI company
For his part, Alejandro Reynal, with a bachelor's and master's degree in Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a master's degree in business management (MBA) from Harvard Business School, is president and CEO of Four Seasons Hotels.
Between 2011 and 2019 he was CEO of Atento, a customer relationship management and business project outsourcing services company then controlled by Telefónica. During his tenure, Atento underwent a "profound transformation process" as it evolved from a call center company to a provider of "experiences" and solutions for customers.
The outgoing directors will continue to be linked to Telefónica, Cirac as vice president of the advisory board of Telefónica Tech - of which he was already a member - and member of the board of Telefónica Innovación Digital, while Erskine will continue as a director of Virgin Media 02.
