The Telefónica family is once again in mourning today, its pulse stiff with grief at the loss of the former Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the operator and a leading executive on the Spanish business scene in recent decades.
José Javier Echenique Landiríbar, born in Isaba (Navarre) in 1951, had an extensive curriculum: a degree in Economics and Actuarial Sciences from the University of the Basque Country, he taught Quantitative Social Security Techniques at the UPV’s Faculty of Economics in Bilbao for several years. He was also Director and General Manager of Allianz-Ercos, General Manager of the BBVA Group (responsible for the Wholesale Businesses: Global Investment Banking, Global Corporate Banking, Business Banking, Administration Banking, Local Credit Banking, Asset Management, Banking in Europe, Insurance and Provisioning, E-Business and the Industrial and Real Estate Group). He was also a member of the Board of Directors of Banco Sabadell (Vice-Chairman), Repsol, S.A., ACS Servicios, Comunicaciones y Energía, S.L., Banco Guipuzcoano, S.A. (Chairman), Grupo Empresarial ENCE, S.A., Sevillana de Electricidad, S.A., Hidroeléctrica del Cantábrico, Metrovacesa and Abertis Infraestructuras, S.A.
He was currently a member of the Board of Directors of Telefónica, S.A., where he was Vice-Chairman, and of Telefónica Audiovisual Digital, S.L.U., ACS Actividades de Construcción y Servicios, S.A., Dragados, S.L. and Calcinor, S.L. He was also a member of the Advisory Board of Telefónica de España and a member of the McKinsey Advisory Council.
In this bittersweet 2024 that we will never forget, we at Telefónica pay a heartfelt tribute to Javier Echenique and we are at his family’s side to remember, once again, that the people who are closest to us are always the hardest to say goodbye to. But we also know that, as the master journalist Manuel Alcántara used to say, ‘what is finished is never finished, it lives on in the memory’. Farewell.
