The figure of César Alierta, who left us that Wednesday at the age of 78 in Zaragoza, is essential to understand the economic and social evolution of Spain at the end of the last century and the beginning of the current one. His transformative and close leadership, his intelligence, courage and global vision, inherited from his parents, made him a business leader inside and outside our borders.
It was his parents; Juana Izuel, a university student, an unusual degree for women in those times, and Cesáreo Alierta, mayor of Zaragoza and president of the Real Zaragoza football club in the 50s of the 20th century, who glimpsed the intellectual abilities and curious spirit of their Fourth child, and they encouraged him to study a master’s degree in Business Administration from Columbia University in New York, after finishing his Law training at the University of Zaragoza.
And with this background, not very common in Spain in the 70s, César appeared in Madrid to join Banco Urquijo and later found a securities company, Beta Capital, leader in its segment.
In 1996 he became president of Tabacalera and with him came the revolution to a society asleep due to recurring but declining income. He segregated the logistics activity, reformed the company’s industrial map and finally sought to increase size with one of the first transnational mergers recorded in Europe: Altadis.
In July 2000 and after years as a company director, he was appointed president of Telefónica, a leading company in Spain and Latin America that Alierta became global. And he did so by promoting the company’s presence in Europe, with the largest asset purchase operation recorded up to that point in Spain: the acquisition of O2 in October 2005.
Under his mandate, Telefónica rose to leadership in the sector in Europe and became one of the 5 largest companies in the world; the first by number of clients except Chinese companies. In those years of geographical expansion, Alierta brought the name of Spain to the highest levels of international leadership, but he did not lose sight of his origins and his native Zaragoza. He left the company after the death of his wife, Ana Cristina Placer; his reference, his compass, his life partner. Ana trusted his abilities more than he did and loved his enthusiasm for life.
In the last few hours, there have been many messages that his excellent family has received, to whose sentiments I join with deep pain. Messages of regret, messages of admiration and messages of gratitude. Because beyond raising the Alierta surname to the highest levels of popularity, César was a deeply generous and empathetic man with the situation of the less fortunate.
He knew how to capture, like no one else, the concerns of Pope Francis and created Profuturo, with Telefónica and La Caixa. He dedicated the last years of his life to this task of universalizing education through new technologies and he said that it was the work of which she felt most proud.
Caesar, simply Caesar, who did not want to be called president; Who fled from flattery and sought criticism with determination, who won you over with a curious question or with a loud and contagious laugh… César, how great and how necessary!! Today many of us cannot conceive a world without César Alierta, not only because of what he gave, what we learned from him or what he transformed our destiny. Not only because of selfishness, but because of the essentiality of having honest men in this world.
D.E.P
