Telefonica's number two Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete was named head of Spain's telecoms giant Friday after its 16 years-long chief executive stepped down, tasked with navigating the company through the digital revolution. The 52-year-old replaces Cesar Alierta, 70, who announced last week he would step down after nearly 16 years at the helm of Telefonica, which pushed into new markets across Europe and Latin America under his watch, spending billions of euros in acquisitions and capital investment.
In recent years though, the heavily indebted company has retrenched in Europe and has focused on its domestic market and key markets in Latin America such as Brazil, its second-largest area. It is now trying to reduce debt, revive its domestic business and reverse shrinking revenue from recession-hit Brazil. "Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete steps in as executive chairman of Telefonica following 17 years in several top executive positions ranging from chief financial officer to COO (chief operating officer)... and including the executive chairmanship of Telefonica Latin America and Telefonica Europe," the group said in a statement.
Alvarez-Pallete is a marathon runner who has since 2012 worked directly under Alierta while being groomed for the top job, and analysts say he is unlikely to change the group's strategy - at least in the short term. He will continue to push Telefonica into high value services such as fibre optics, Pay TV and 4G. The company is also waiting for regulatory approval from Brussels for the sale last year of its UK mobile unit, 02, to Hong Kong conglomerate CH Hutchison for 10.25 billion pounds.
Active on Twitter where he has some 47,000 followers, the father-of-three - who also speaks English, French and Portuguese - shares countless news stories mainly on technology, personal development and running. But this technophilia earned him bad publicity in 2011, when he was filmed by Spanish television during a shareholders' meeting playing a video game on his tablet, at a time when the group was preparing to lay off 8,500 people.