Few bankers would have envied José Ignacio Goirigolzarri when in 2012 he was called in to rescue Bankia, a debt- and corruption-ridden Spanish lender teetering on the brink of collapse. The bank was caught up in a maelstrom of fraud and mismanagement. Its former chairman and ex-managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Rodrigo Rato, was forced to resign and was later imprisoned for misappropriation of funds. Bankia’s €38bn property portfolio, at the height of the real estate meltdown, ranked largest among Spanish banks. The government had to step in with a €22.4bn rescue plan that entailed taking a 68.4% holding in the troubled bank. Bankia was in urgent need of a restructuring plan.
Mr Goirigolzarri brought to the job his many years of experience in strategic planning. The 67-year-old native of the Basque country began his career in Banco de Bilbao’s strategic planning department in 1977. He oversaw the merger with Banco de Vizcaya and later Argentaria, forming the present-day BBVA. In April 2001 he became the group’s global head of retail banking and, eight months later, he was appointed chief executive.
