How long have you been with Telefónica and how would you rate your time here?
I have been with Telefónica Móviles for 26 years. I joined Telefónica Móviles when digital mobile telephony was still the young promise that was beginning to gallop ahead and, until recently, analogue telephony had been the established one….. I have seen technologies, products and services, even advertising. The landscape passes quickly through the window at Telefónica.
Although the present is always fast-paced, this succession of “current events” that happen one after the other, that pass quickly, is a feature of “the house” and I have ended up discovering it as a value, something that is not experienced everywhere. During the time that Telefónica and I have spent together since I started, I have gone through a number of areas, functions, competencies, realities, personal groups, situations and so on. That experience is privileged didactic.
Is there a project at Telefónica that you are particularly proud or satisfied with?
Fortunately, I have been able to collect such moments over the years. I could name several, perhaps the most special was during the pandemic. Seeing how telecommunications sustained and made possible so much of what was then disrupted was something that really made me proud. To be a thousandth part of that, along with thousands of my colleagues, took on a meaning that I had not appreciated until then. I don’t think that importance has ever been more realised than it was then.
I could tell you about my current satisfaction with the function of the management to which I belong, Compliance, and its importance in developing and implementing an ethical culture of compliance, respect for regulations, prevention and good practices, and I could go on and on, I will restrain myself, but yes, it is really gratifying.
It was hard work, but with the reward of being able to see how your work solved concrete difficulties for concrete people. It was very tangible. I often say that all of us who went through that experience talked to thousands of customers, instead of talking about the customer a thousand times. Something that, in all honesty, I think can contribute a lot to understanding realities.
See? I’m a collector of good times… I have many more!
What do you think Telefónica has contributed to society?
Telefónica’s main privilege is that its business is closely related to technologies that generate well-being for people and are deployable in a multitude of areas. Telefónica is now of a very respectable age and can afford a retrospective vision within the reach of very few legal companies. I believe that this trait is very recognisable throughout its history and present. Making communication possible, in a broad (and increasingly broad!) sense, and being at the technological forefront of what was considered to be so at any given time since 1924, is more than just a contribution, it is a part of society.
Where do you see Telefónica in the future?
Progress is more than technological evolution, the latter is a neutral, technical value, the former is a “refined” result, associated with improvement of conditions of a broad nature. The idea of progress assumes that evolution translates into a good for the individual or society. This also means that technology must be aligned with the moral parameters, rights and respect for the essential values of a society. This is an increasingly demanding challenge for technology…
Being Compliance, no one will be surprised to see the challenge exciting, and Telefónica “refining” the technology until it becomes net progress, applying these parameters (and others). Technology + values = progress, we could say.
Could you live without a mobile phone?
I wouldn’t want to test myself on that… A little over two decades ago we lived without a mobile phone, because the world around us lacked one. Today it is doubtful that the environment gave us a choice. But to be able to live, what is said to be able to live, can be done without many of the things we have. Dilemmas of the First World.
Help us solve one of humanity’s great enigmas: the potato omelette… With onion or without onion?
It’s fine if someone likes it with onion, with tuna or with worms, but the sovereign omelette, no onion, please. Anyway, I’m a tolerant person, I know people who like onions and I haven’t even reproached them for it.
Nominate another colleague to appear in this section
I think, for example, what Carlos Fraile García or Carmen Montaño Martín have to say could be very interesting.
