CaixaBank dilutes the commercial empire created in the last decade by one of the most important managers within the group. The Catalan bank surprised on Wednesday with the cessation of Juan Antonio Alcaraz, a banker out of the media spotlight, but who exercised tight control over the income-generating arm of CaixaBank. He was also one of the senior leaders who had accumulated the most power in recent years with the entity’s continued growth to become the leader in the Spanish market.
The strength of a commercial bank like CaixaBank lies in its business area. And Alcaraz had under his command the network of branches, banking for individuals, the private banking business and banking for companies, which are the engine of the bank’s income generation. He was also president of the payments subsidiary (CaixaBank Payments & Consumer) and of the digital bank Imagin. A true power in the shadow, more or less autonomous, of the CEO, Gonzalo Gortázar.
Thanks to the traditional commitment of the Catalan entity to increase its presence throughout the country, Alcaraz had a commercial empire that has not stopped growing. And in 2021, after the integration of Bankia, it further extended its networks. With this transaction, the bank became the domestic leader in market share in the segments core of retail banking. The branch network grew considerably, going from 3,570 to 5,700 branches. And although the entity undertook a massive closure plan to eliminate the duplication generated by the merger, CaixaBank became a commercial steamroller with an overwhelming presence throughout the national territory. And at the top of that business pyramid was Alcaraz.
Once the integration is completed, the bank has decided to dilute that vast empire and divide into three parts the responsibility that until now Alcaraz had concentrated alone. Hereinafter, Jaume Masana Ribalta will be in charge of business Mariona Vicens will be the director of digital transformation and Jordi Nicolau the director of Payments and Consumer. A tricephaly for the business area that turns the organization towards a less pyramidal structure, in which the three managers will have a limited field of action under their charge and will be under the close supervision of Gortázar, who stands out even more from from now on, in the bank’s organization chart as a great executive leader, without powers in the shadows.
The official explanation of CaixaBank when announcing the dismissal of Alcaraz, that the bank seeks to start a new stage after completing the integration of Bankia. The entity has entered a new dimension and for this it seeks to equip itself with a modern structure in the machine room, specialized in new businesses and adapted to digital transformation and focused on sustainable business. Alcaraz is an old-school banker who has amassed a 15-year track record at the bank. He was already one of the strong men of Isidro Faine, the current president of the La Caixa Foundation, who is currently the main shareholder of the entity with 30% of the capital, and with which he usually dispatched. Both worked hand in hand between 2007, when Alcaraz joined the then La Caixa, and 2016, the year in which Fainé left the presidency of the entity after 35 years at the helm.
Throughout his career at CaixaBank, Alcaraz has dealt with the financial crisis that started at the turn of the century and began the consolidation of the banking sector. Also, with the drought caused by the decade of low interest rates and with the Covid-19 pandemic. From all of them he came out stronger. Likewise, he has faced the digitization of the business that has revolutionized the sector, whose battle to achieve customers and sales is fought online.
After building the largest business empire in Spanish banking, Gortazár has decided that Alcaraz’s work is complete and turning the page. The manager, well valued in the sector, will have to seek, from now on, new horizons far from home.
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