General counsel and secretary to the board of Spanish electricity giant Iberdrola, Julián Martínez-Simancas Sánchez not only has a prestigious legal role, but also serves as a key component of the company’s board of directors and delegate executive committee. Additionally, he is a director of Iberdrola España, a sub-holding company that develops the functions of the organisation and strategic coordination of the group’s business in its home country of Spain.

This wide and prestigious remit has been afforded to Martínez-Simancas thanks to his outstanding career that has seen him occupy a number of roles within the Iberdrola organisation since 2002. He has undertaken roles ranging from deputy chairman and CEO, deputy secretary of the board of directors, chairman of the regulatory compliance unit of the company and general secretary and the board of directors, as well as executive director of Iberdrola México and as a member of the advisory board of Iberdrola in Andalusia.

During this time he states he has ‘actively participated’ in creating the corporate and governance structure of the group, incorporating ‘the most advanced’ trends of good governance. In-line with the strong ethical policy of Iberdrola (it was the only European utility included in the 2018 Bloomberg gender equality index, in recognition of its equal opportunities and gender policies), Martínez-Simancas explains his pride at Iberdrola being awarded the best corporate governance award by World Finance magazine, which recognised ‘the maximum transparency in the information communicated to the market and the good corporate governance practices of the company’.

These standards were also highlighted during the company’s last general shareholder meeting, where ‘the incorporation of the commitment to the social dividend and the mission, vision and values of the group’ were approved. Thanks in no small part to Martínez-Simancas’ contributions, Iberdrola has been selected for the fourth consecutive year as one of the most ethical companies in the world, according to the 2017 world’s most ethical companies ranking developed by the Ethisphere Institute. Before his storied and noteworthy tenure at Iberdrola, Martínez-Simancas developed a wide career in the financial and industrial sectors through a number of different roles.

His career in the financial sector culminated in his appointment as the CEO and member of the board of directors of Banco Santander Central Hispano, where he worked for over 20 years. He also spent two year terms as an adviser in Airtel Móvil, the General Sugar Society of Spain and Cementos Portland Valderrivas, among other companies in the industrial sector. Complimenting his outstanding career track record and knowledge dissemination applied to a variety of business contexts, Martínez-Simancas has been a professor of commercial law at Universidad Pontificia Comillas – ICADE and of graduate programmes at Instituto de Empresa. He is the author and editor of books and articles on legal and financial matters, and the editor of collective works focusing on innovation in law and corporate governance, further demonstrating his commitment to the field.