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The Santander executive has had strong support from BBVA in a process where the other great candidate was the KPMG partner Francisco Uría
Alejandra Kindelán It will be the new president from US Banking Employers from April 5 in substitution of Jose Maria Roldanwhich last year announced its intention to not running for a third term following eight years at the head of the organization that represents traditional banks. The actual head of study servicespublic affairs and institutional relations of the Santander has been imposed on the other candidate who had more options: Francisco Uría, partner of the consulting firm KPMG.
Despite coming from the bank chaired by Ana Botinthe Santander executive has had from the beginning a strong support of its traditional competitor, the BBVA, as pointed out in the sector. Uría, a State lawyer who held high positions in the administration and also in the AEB itself (he was its deputy secretary general between 2004 and 2010), also had an ideal profile, but various sources indicate that his candidacy has not prospered because, among other reasons, your current salary It is above what he would have received as president of the employers’ association (around half a million euros, according to some sources), with which the change would have made him lose salary.
Kindelán, bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Wellesley College (Massachusetts), has postgraduate studies at IESE (Madrid) and INSEAD (Fontainebleau). She was born in Caracas (Venezuela), she has lived in the United Kingdom and the United States and has three children, according to the AEB. She started her career as consultant at the World Bank in Washington in 1993, later joining the studies department of the Hispanic Central Bank in 1994, which was subsequently merged with Santander. Since 2001 he has been responsible for the study services, a responsibility to which he added public affairs in 2008 and institutional relations in 2018. Organically, he reports to José Manuel Cendoya, general director of communication, corporate marketing and studies of the group and vice president of Santander Spain. .
the first president
Officially, the person elected to chair the AEB is proposed by the top five banks of the association (currently Santander, BBVA, Sabadell, Bankinter and Deutsche Bank Spain) to the rest of the partners. In practice, given the greater weighting of votes that the statutes grant to the largest entities by assets, it has traditionally been a process led by the bank of Cantabrian originwhich arrives at a consensus with BBVA and then submit it to the consideration of the rest.
Since the second half of last year and with the help of a headhunting firm (‘head hunter’), the large entities have been purging a initial list with numerous candidates until staying with the finalists. Since last summer, the banks have seen as a positive option that the presidency of their organization take care of a woman for the first time, as it has finally happened. “If she were a woman she would be fine,” he confirmed. Ana Botin a few weeks ago. “I wish I were a woman, it would be a step in the right direction, but it’s regarding finding the right person,” confirmed the BBVA chairman the next day, Carlos Torres Vila.
longer than usual
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The search for the ideal candidate, in any case, has longer than usual and what was forecast by the entities themselves in the fourth quarter of last year. During the process, they have even considered appointing a President with a more representative function and institutional and even number twowith the position of chief executive officer or general manager, who was in charge of the executive tasks. The selection has been carried out with discretion to avoid potentially controversial leaks like the ones that occurred the last time they had to renew the presidency of the AEB.
In 2013, Santander and BBVA chose Joseph Manuel Campa, then a professor at the IESE business school and currently president of the European Banking Authority. They made it known to the then Minister of Economy and current Vice President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Luis de Guindos, but he opposed it because Campa had been Secretary of State for Economy with the PSOE between 2009 and 2011. Despite the fact that the minister did not have legal veto power, the entities accepted him and chose José María Roldán, from the Bank of Spain. Guindos opposed it once more, even publicly, but this second time the banks did not yield.
