This Wednesday, Caixabank confirmed a goodbye that very few people expected in the financial sector, although it was a movement that was going to happen sooner or later: the departure of José Ignacio Goirigolzarri from the presidency of Caixabank starting next January 1, 2025. Looking back, a history of the sector, with several professional lives behind him in three of the largest national entities, says goodbye to banking: BBVA, Bankia and Caixabank.
Born in Bilbao in 1954 and graduated in economics from the University of Deusto, Goirigolzarri is a survivor of the big Spanish banks, with the experience of having led the rescue of Bankia. After its merger with Caixabank in 2021, he served as executive president, in an entity in which the State holds 17% of the shareholders. However, executive power was – and will remain – in the hands of the CEO, Gonzalo Gortázar, with CriteriaCaixa, the holding company of the La Caixa Banking Foundation, as the largest shareholder, with 31.7% of the capital.
“I didn’t come here to clarify responsibilities.” This was Goirigolzarri’s response to the media when in May 2012, in the midst of the financial crisis, he was appointed president of Bankia after the entity collapsed during the savings bank disaster. He was chosen to replace Rodrigo Rato as president of Bankia, with the mission of trying to put its finances in order. It succeeded because the State entered the capital of the entity with an injection of public funds of more than 20 billion euros to resolve a management for which no manager of the entity ended up being sentenced.
Goirigolzarri spent almost a decade at the helm of Bankia, from 2012 until 2021, when the merger with Caixabank was completed. In reality, it was his second life in the financial sector. His first experience at the helm of a major bank was at BBVA, where he spent almost three decades, coming from the former Banco Bilbao.
Right-hand man of Francisco González at BBVA
Today, when saying goodbye to Caixabank, Goirigolzarri is 70 years old. In 2009, he was 55 years old. It was then that he agreed with BBVA on an early and golden retirement, which lasted less than three years.
With the bubble already beginning to burst and half the world going through a major financial crisis, Goirigolzarri tendered his resignation as CEO of BBVA, a position he had held for nine years. The reason, according to several media: Francisco González had decided to remain president of the entity, at least until he was 70 years old. His position passed into the hands of Ángel Cano, who remained for almost five years, when he was replaced. by Carlos Torres. In reality, the power of BBVA remained in the hands of González, until he said goodbye in 2019 after the Villarejo scandal, a trial still awaiting conviction.
His arrival as CEO of BBVA was also not without controversy, as it came after the ex-BBV’s former leaders, Emilio Ybarra and Pedro Luis Uriarte, had to resign when he was discovered that the bank maintained secret accounts in the tax haven. from Jersey to finance their salaries. It cost them their jobs. At that time, various sources reported to Francisco González, who had the support of the management of José María Aznar, a leak that allowed him to become president of BBVA. Ybarra, who died in 2019, ended up being sentenced by the National Court in 2005, but only to six months in prison, for the offense of embezzlement, because he took into account the mitigating circumstances of the “confessions”.
Your salary at Bankia and Caixabank
After his appointment as president of Bankia in 2012, the saved entity set him a salary of 500,000 euros, which he maintained for five consecutive years, even if he increased it in the following years to 800,000 euros . During the pandemic, his compensation was reduced again to 500,000 euros. However, the merger with Caixabank has once again injected oxygen into his salary, which last year reached 2.25 million euros. In total, since Goirigolzarri took over the management of Bankia and then the presidency of Caixabank, he has received more than 11.2 million euros.
Today, as president, although not a Caixabank executive, he is replaced by Tomás Muniesa, a housekeeper. Muniesa is responsible for the insurance sector – VidaCaixa and SegurCaixa Adeslas – and since April 2018 he already holds the position of vice president, so it will not be an internal revolution.
Muniesa has worked for almost 50 years in the bank, which he joined in 1976 and is already a member of the board of directors, where he represents Criteria. He will not take office until January 1 and will not have as much power as Goirigolzarri, because all executive positions remain in the hands of Gonzalo Gortázar.
