María Dolores Dancausa has left the position of CEO of Bankinter this week to become president. Without executive functions, she abandons the battlefront of management and media exposure to dedicate herself to less demanding tasks and settle some accounts with the past, such as walking the Camino de Santiago with her three children. Her departure, at least partial, marks a small milestone in the Spanish banking sector, from which one of the most influential and combative managers is leaving.
Born in Burgos, this graduate in Law from the CEU with training at Harvard and the French business school Insead grew up as a manager at Línea Directa, of which she reached the position of CEO in 2008. She then made the leap to the bank that owns it. of the insurance company, Bankinter, to become its first executive in 2010. At the end of last year, the entity reported that Dancausa will leave office after thirteen years of intense dedication to replace Pedro Guerrero as president. After a transition period, Gloria Ortiz assumed the position of CEO on Thursday at the shareholders' meeting.
In a recent meeting with journalists, Dancausa herself described her time at the head of Bankinter as an “accelerated master's degree in banking.” He has had to run a bank in the middle of the worst financial crisis in decades and also face a pandemic. She is proud to have contributed to taking Línea Directa public in 2021 and that Bankinter's profit has quintupled during her mandate, ending with a record profit in 2023, of 845 million euros. “Now the bank needs a replacement. Thirteen years is a long time and we must give way to a new generation,” she says. “I leave with the satisfaction of having fulfilled my duty. “I leave a more solid, robust bank, with greater ambition and dimension.”
Contrary to appearances, the former CEO of the bank considers herself shy and admits having experienced her appearances before the press “with anguish.” However, unlike other corporations, she defends the effort to come forward. “It is something that every business manager has to do.”
Her public exposure has made her her own voice in major debates. She does not usually shy away from giving her opinion on political decisions that affect his sector, as he has been doing lately with the extraordinary tax on banks, which she describes as “unfair” and “discriminatory.” “It seems that the banks are to blame for everything,” she complains. “On a personal level I am very satisfied to defend the sector,” she adds.
His combative spirit does not prevent him from having good words for political leaders such as the current Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, whom he describes as “prepared, intelligent, accessible and conciliatory.” His prediction is that the Government's relationship with the banks will improve, which is a way of suggesting that the harmony during Nadia Calviño's time was not the best.
Dancausa has also been slipping some notes on personal philosophy over the years. Running a bank has been, as she says, “a privilege” in which she has imposed on herself “the obligation to be positive and optimistic.” Her experience has shown her the importance of “adapting to all situations,” and day-to-day life has led her to assume a premise: “Work as if you were going to be there all your life and be prepared to leave the next day.” .
This executive, who on some occasions has compared the challenges of the banking sector to Ravel's Bolero – “it is always the same, but it sounds louder each time” – is not attracted to politics despite having built a profile with projection. “Nothing tempts me. It demands a lot of exposure,” he says.
His new life is more aimed at recovering some routines that the demands of the position have prevented him from enjoying. One of them is being able to eat with his family one day every day. He managed it on occasion, but when he got home he noticed that his presence in the middle of the day was too exceptional. The Camino de Santiago is another of the thorns that he wants to remove.
