The independent director María Garaña has resigned from her position on the board of directors of Unicaja Banco, which for the entity’s highest governing body is the fifth loss in the last month, after the departure of the four representatives of the Foundation Unicaja for lack of confidence. Garaña, who was appointed a member in March 2021, announced her resignation this Thursday through a note addressed to the members of the council, the bank explained to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV).
The resignation will become effective in March, after the next ordinary general meeting of the entity that is scheduled for that month. “The deferral of the effects of the resignation will allow the director to contribute to the functioning of the board and the committees of which she is a part, in relation to the actions that have to be addressed until the holding of the meeting”, stressed Unicaja Banco .
Garaña, who has a degree in Business Law from the CEU San Pablo University, a diploma in International Trade from the University of Berkeley and an MBA from Harvard University, justifies her departure for “reasons of time availability and the demand for increasing additional dedication for the exercise of her duties as director.
María Garaña is the director of the technological multinational Adobe and has previously worked in companies such as Andersen Consulting, Televisión Azteca, Microsoft or Google, where she was general director of Professional Services for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. From 2015 to 2021 she was an independent director of Liberbank and from 2016 to 2019 of the DIA distribution chain. She has also been a member of the European Institute of Technology (EIT), dependent on the European Commission (2012-2017), and since 2015 she is a director of Alantra Partners.
The resignation of María Garaña is added to the recent departure of four other directors from the bank, in this case proprietary directors, after the Unicaja Foundation lost confidence in them: Teresa Sáez, Petra Mateos-Aparicio, Manuel Muela and Juan Fraile.
On December 29, the Unicaja Foundation put an end to the controversial stage of former president Braulio Medel with the appointment of his four new representatives at the bank: Miguel González, Juan Antonio Izaguirre, Natalia Sánchez and José Ramón Sánchez. This designation, approved with a broad consensus of the board of trustees, must be materialized by the general meeting of shareholders next March.
