Inaugural lecture for the 2024-2025 academic year: "Trust is priceless", by Jordi Gual

15/10/2024

Professor Jordi Gual will present the results of his research on how successful management (and regulation) of macroeconomic policies involves turning companies into central axes of this management (adopting a stakeholder approach) and, fundamentally, returning to the spirit of community. Only in this way, with humanistic values, will it be possible to guarantee the functioning of a renewed capitalism.

Jordi Gual holds a PhD in Economics (1987) from the University of California-Berkeley and is a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in London. His research interests cover diverse topics such as: industrial organization (telecommunications, banking, digital markets), regulation and competition policy, European integration, macroeconomics, and finance.

In addition to his academic work, Jordi Gual has been non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of VidaCaixa since April 2021, a member of the Board of Directors of Telefónica Brasil and the Advisory Board of Telefónica España.

Between 2016 and 2021 he was Chairman of CaixaBank. Before assuming this position, he was Chief Economist and Executive Director of Strategic Planning and Studies at CaixaBank and General Director of Strategic Planning and Development at CriteriaCaixa. He joined the “la Caixa” group in 2005. He has been a member of the Boards of Directors of Telefónica, Erste Group Bank and Repsol. He has also been Vice President of the Círculo de Economía and COTEC, and President of FEDEA.

He has been Economic Advisor at the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs at the European Commission in Brussels and a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. Since March 2022 he has been an Associate at OXERA Consulting LLP (London). He is also a member of the Boards of Trustees of the CEDE Foundation and the CIC Cultural Institution, and has recently been appointed as a SUERF Fellow and member of the Advisory Board of the Spanish Institute of Financial Analysts.

Jordi Gual has published widely on banking issues, European integration, regulation and competition policy. He is a regular contributor to “La Vanguardia” and other newspapers. His latest book is: Confiar no tiene precio (Penguin Random House, April 2024).

In 2019 he was awarded the Gold Badge of the Spanish Institute of Financial Analysts, and in 1999 he was awarded the European Investment Bank research prize.

Date and Time: Tuesday, November 5th, at 12:30pm
Place: Sala d'Actes