BBVA fosters diversity at its Board with three new appointments
BBVA is to propose at the Annual General Meeting the appointments of Ana Revenga, Raúl Galamba and Carlos Salazar as new board members. With this announcement, BBVA fosters diversity of its highest decision-making governing body in several areas: female board members will now account for a third of the Board, meeting the goal set for 2020; and foreign board members will represent 40 percent. Areas of knowledge as relevant as sustainability will also be reinforced, especially from a social and aid development standpoint, as well as the global financial system and the Mexican financial sector, in particular. Following these changes, the Board will have two thirds of independent members.
The BBVA Board of Directors has decided to propose Ana Revenga and Raúl Galamba as new independent board members, and Carlos Salazar as an external board member. The Board expressed its gratitude to Carlos Loring Martínez de Irujo, José Manuel González-Páramo y Tomás Alfaro Drake for their dedication, contribution and commitment with the Group. Their term will conclude at the next Annual General Meeting. José Manuel Gónzález-Páramo will continue to be involved with the bank as an external advisor. Additionally, BBVA is to propose the renewal of Lourdes Máiz Carro and Susana Rodríguez Vidarte as independent and external board members, respectively.
With these appointments, which are part of the regular and continuing renewal of the Board, BBVA fosters its gender diversity, knowledge and competences, as well as the international profile of its Board. All this with the aim of having governing bodies with the most suitable and balanced composition, and according to the needs of each moment.
BBVA is adding board members of three different nationalities, with a deep knowledge in areas of the highest relevance for the BBVA Group, such as sustainability (particularly related to equity, fight against poverty, aid development, and gender equality, among others), Mexico and the global financial sector. The bank also meets the target it had set to have at least 30 percent of women on its highest governing body by 2020 (specifically 33 percent, vs. 27 percent before these changes).
If the proposals are approved at the Annual General Meeting, which will be held in Bilbao on March 13, 2020, 10 out of 15 members of the BBVA Board, which represent two thirds, will be independent (compared to 8 at this time).
The appointments are subject to review by the European Central Bank regarding the fit and proper regulatory requirements to exercise the role of board member.
The new proposals for board members are:
Ana Revenga Shanklin (Spain, 1963. Spanish and American citizenship) She has a solid academic background, including a B.A. magna cum laude in Economics and Mathematics, an M.A. and a Ph. D in Economics from Harvard University. Her professional career has been mostly at the World Bank, in Washington, where she held relevant positions between 1994 and 2017, such as senior director of Global Poverty & Equity and Deputy Chief Economist. During her career with this institution she also led projects related to global economy, sustainability, social impact of the finance industry, as well as poverty and equity, human development and gender equality. Before that, she was a researcher at the National Bureau of Economic Research in the U.S., an economist with Spanish Central Bank and a Professor of International Economics at the Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros (CEMFI). She is currently a member of the Board of Trustees at the BBVA Microfinance Foundation.
Raúl Galamba de Oliveira (Portugal, 1964) has held several positions during his long professional career at McKinsey & Co., with special emphasis and specialization in financial services. Among other responsibilities, he was managing director for Spain and Portugal, managing director in the area of Global Risks and member of the Global Shareholders Council, the highest governing body at McKinsey & Co. He is an engineer by training, and during his career he has worked in Lisbon, Madrid, New York and Hong Kong.
Carlos Salazar Lomelín (Mexico, 1951) has an extensive career of more than 45 years in the private sector, academia and social institutions in Mexico. Between 1973 and 2019 he held different positions in FEMSA, a Monterrey-based multinational company, leader in beverages and retail. He was the general manager of the company during the 2014-17 period. In January 2019, Salazar was appointed chairman of the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial de México (an institution that represents Mexican businessmen and gathers the seven leading Mexican business associations, with the aim of promoting free market, democracy, corporate social responsibility and equal access to opportunities for the population). He has also served as Professor of Economics at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey for more than 40 years. Salazar will remain as a board member of BBVA in Mexico, a position he took in 2005. The BBVA Mexican unit board is chaired by Jaime Serra Puche.