The Italian ambassador in Madrid Riccardo Guariglia was present at the award ceremony, conferred by the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Spain (Ccis) and by the Confederación Española de las Organizaciones Empresariales (CEOE).
Tonight Luigi Ferraris, CEO of the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane group and José Bogas Galvez, CEO of Endesa, received the 2022 Tiepolo Award, an award that, since 1996, has valued the careers of successful Spanish and Italian entrepreneurs and their important contribution to the strengthening of economic and trade relations between the two countries.
The award was presented to the CEOs by the Spanish Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, at the Amboage Palace, headquarters of the diplomatic representation of Italy in Madrid.
Ferraris and Bogas “are two well-known executives, one Italian and the other Spanish, whose companies are leaders in two strategic sectors of the economy and who are definitely aiming for decarbonisation. Two sectors in which the activities of these two companies are obviously very close to people’s needs, improving the well-being of the society in which we live”, said the Italian ambassador in Madrid Riccardo Guariglia, opening the award ceremony, conferred by the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Spain (Ccis) and by the Confederación Española de las Organizaciones Empresariales (CEOE), under the auspices of the Italian Embassy in Spain.
The event was also attended by the president of Assocamerestero, Mario Pozza and the presidents of the Ccis, Marco Pizzi, and of the Ceoe, Antonio Garamendi. The award, now in its 25th edition, was sponsored by Brembo, Fs, Generali, Italfarmaco Group, Endesa, Iveco, Mediaset España, Negrini, Unidad editorial, Intesa Sanpaolo and Iryo.
Over the years it has been awarded to personalities such as Francesco Starace, Giovanni Agnelli, Cesare Romiti, Pietro Salini, Marco Tronchetti Provera and Mario Monti.
“I share this prestigious recognition with the entire FS Group team and with the over 82,000 employees who work in Italy and in the foreign branches. In particular, with colleagues who work here in Spain, who in recent weeks are busy with the debut of our Frecciarossa 1000 on the Spanish high-speed rails” which “is the last step in a strategy which sees the FS group increasingly active in an integrated European railway market open to competition,” said Ferraris, in his speech after receiving the award.
“Our intention is to share the experience acquired in the Italian high-speed market, making it available to Spain and Europe to replicate the positive results and successful models achieved in Italy,” he added. Ferraris is, since June 2021, CEO of the Italian State Railways, the largest infrastructure group in Italy, and leader in the rail transport of passengers and goods.
Through the operator Trenitalia, the group is part of the Iryo consortium, the first company private high-speed railway in Spain, which activated the first commercial connection in the country last November 25th, on the Madrid-Barcelona line and which will inaugurate new connections between Madrid, Cuenca and Valencia on December 16th.
“Receiving the Tiepolo Award is an honor and a privilege for me for which I am deeply and sincerely grateful”, said Bogas in his speech, underlining that he has “deep professional and personal ties with Italy and I can say that I have made good Italian friends over the last two decades”.
“Today, being part of a global business group is an enormous privilege,” underlined the CEO of Endesa, “It offers us the opportunity to see the world from different perspectives. Every country has its own projects and every culture has its own virtues. This is why I have always seen the Endesa-Enel connection as a permanent transfer of value in both directions, which makes us undeniably better”.
José Damián Bogas Gálvez has been the CEO of Endesa SA since 2014, a leading company in the Spanish electricity sector and second largest operator in the electricity market in Portugal. He is also Iberia Country Manager of the Enel Group, the Italian energy multinational of which Endesa is a part, and President of Enel Green Power Spain, the group company dedicated to the generation of energy from renewable sources and one of the main players in the renewable energy sector worldwide.
Under the direction of Bogas, the company is playing a fundamental role in the technological transformation of the energy sector and in the transition to clean energy, focusing decisively on renewables in the ambitious goal, shared with the Italian parent company Enel, of bringing forward to 2040 the complete decarbonisation of its activities.
The Tiepolo award “is an example of the close economic relations” between Spain and Italy, said the Spanish Industry Minister Reyes Maroto, underlining how the Pnrr could be an opportunity to increase collaboration between Madrid and Rome. The minister then pointed out that so far the winners of the Tiepolo award have all been men and therefore invited the jury not to forget female leadership and to recognize female entrepreneurs in the two countries.
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