The Princess of Asturias Foundation Board of Trustees held its annual meeting today via video conference to approve the accounts, audit report and management report corresponding to the financial year 2020.
In addition to hearing reports from the institution’s president, Luis Fernández-Vega, and director, Teresa Sanjurjo, the members of the Board of Trustees were presented with the 2020 Annual Report. The Trustees was also informed as to the financial situation and assets of the Foundation, which ended the year with positive net income and a similar level of expenditure to that of the previous year. The Foundation’s overall expenditure in 2020 amounted to 5.6 million euros. The report will be posted on the Foundation's website on 4th June.
The Board of Trustees approved the incorporation to this governing body of Íñigo Abarca Junco, and the changes in the persons representing the University of Oviedo, Banco Santander and BBVA, namely Rector Ignacio Villaverde Menéndez, Jaime Pérez Renovales and Ana Fernández Manrique, respectively. Moreover, José Lladó Fernández-Urrutia, Honorary Chairman of Técnicas Reunidas, was appointed an honorary member of the Princess of Asturias Board of Trustees.
The agenda also included the approval of the Regulations governing the 2022 Princess of Asturias Awards and Exemplary Town of Asturias Award.
Activities Report 2020
Among the details and information related to the activities undertaken throughout 2020, the most significant correspond to the granting and presentation of the Princess of Asturias Awards and the arrangements for the corresponding cultural week surrounding the latter event. The last edition featured 83 events, free and open to the general public, in which more than 20,600 people participated, both in-person and online, as the events were adapted to the public health conditions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of formats and a reduction in the number of attendees at any given event.
Chairman of Asturiana de Zinc, S.A.U. from 2017 to December 2020, he graduated in Law from the Autonomous University, Madrid, in 1977. He has also attended courses in the field of law at the US Legal System International Law Institute, Georgetown University Law Center (Washington, 1985), and completed the Harvard Program of Instruction for Lawyers at the Instituto de Empresa (Madrid, 1989). He began his professional career at Bankinter in 1979. In 1981, he began working in the Madrid offices of the international law firm Baker & McKenzie (1981-1985 and 1987-1994), with stays in Chicago (USA) between 1985 and 1986. He was appointed an international partner in 1990. In November 1994, he was appointed general secretary of the Banesto Industrial and Financial Corporation, a position he held until July 1998. He joined Asturiana de Zinc, S.A. (AZSA), as general secretary and secretary to the Board in 1998. Following the acquisition of AZSA by Xstrata PLC in 2001, he also became the chief legal counsel of the zinc unit, with global responsibilities within the Xstrata Group. On the occasion of the merger of the Xstrata and Glencore groups, he assumed the responsibility of Sole Administrator of AZSA in 2013 and was subsequently appointed president in 2017, a position he held until leaving the group in December 2020.