How a UK born executive became the Spanish Government’s Corporate Fixer – CSN News

Marc Murtra does not like to make quiet entrances. When the Spanish government abruptly installed him at Telefónica this month after kicking out its executive chair, the opposition leader called Murtra an agent of political “colonialism” furthering Spain’s “anti-democratic drift”.

Such hyperbolic fury is inescapable when you are the favourite corporate agitator of Pedro Sánchez, the divisive socialist prime minister with an interventionist streak.

Murtra has become the premier’s go-to fixer when businesses need to change. The British-Spanish executive brings a steely politeness to the task — but the results were explosive the first time he was deployed.

In 2021, Sánchez ousted the boss of defence tech group Indra and parachuted in Murtra, triggering accusations of crony capitalism and governance heresy from the right.

Many board members questioned Murtra’s qualifications and fought against his executive powers as chairman. They got their revenge a year later, when Murtra helped to get five independent board members voted out in a turbulent shareholder meeting. One of the directors resigned out of protest. Murtra was finally granted some executive authority last year.

Marc Thomas Murtra Millar, a young man from Blackburn in northern England, has come a long way since his birth to reach the crossroads where money and power meet in Spain.

Valued at €22bn, Telefónica lost roughly half its value during the nine-year tenure of Murtra’s predecessor, who slashed its debt but was short of big ideas. The government now has new concerns. After Saudi Arabia’s STC said it was building a 10 per cent stake in Telefónica in 2023, Madrid ordered the Spanish state to acquire 10 per cent, while CriteriaCaixa, a friendly private institution, did the same. All three worked together to install Murtra.

According to former Telefónica executives, two things about the company have long attracted governments: its clout as one of Spain’s biggest advertisers, which translates into media influence, and its control of communications data vital to intelligence agencies. More recently, as the EU battles perceptions of economic decline, some officials see Telefónica as a potential consolidator that could acquire the heft to compete as a European champion, based in Madrid.

But the number of executives to whom Sánchez would entrust it is small. He is unpopular among Spain’s largely conservative business elite. As a result, he has a very small pool of people who share his views. That helps explain how leadership of Telefónica fell to the grandson of a local doctor who once practised in the small town of Oswaldtwistle.

Murtra was born in Catalonia to a Catalan heart surgeon and an English-Northern Irish mother. His father met her while working in the UK. Murtra and his family moved to Spain before he turned one. He was raised in Catalonia.

He spoke Catalan at home to his father and mother, as well as Spanish to his younger sister. This infused him with a natural cosmopolitanism, which most business executives only learn later in life.

Maurici Lucena described Murtra, a friend for many years, as a “calm person who loves order and is pleasant”. He also said that Murtra was “a little shy”.

A senior business figure in Spain said Murtra is a refined and intelligent navigator through the corporate bear pits. “He knows what to do without being rude.”

Murtra, as he grew older and more business-minded, formed ties with Catalan socialists who were proud of the region’s unique identity, but did not want it to split from Spain.

Murtra is close to Salvador Illa, a former Spanish health minister who became Catalonia’s regional president last year and is himself a confidant of Sánchez. These friendships helped him to get where he’s at today, despite his more centrist ideology.

Ignasi Neto Magaldi said that he was always a Tony Blair fan, and this made him stand out from the rest. She has known him since many years. “He took a liberal stance on economic issues. His position on non-economic matters was more socialist than social democratic.

Murtra earned an MBA at New York University after studying industrial engineering in Barcelona. He began his career in the UK at British Nuclear Fuels, and then moved to Spain, where he worked in the public and consulting sectors. He was the chief of staff for a Spanish Industry Minister, another Catalan Socialist, and spent two full years in that position. He switched to the private sector in 2011, setting up Barcelona-based boutique investment bank Crea Inversión, which gave him ample M&A experience.

“Often people say ‘he’s political, he’s just a guy with connections’,” said Nieto. “But I disagree. “Apart from his training, he started a successful business.”

Murtra, who is 28 percent owned by Spain, was virtually unknown when he was appointed to lead Indra. His goal was to turn the company into a defence-focused company proudly supplying the armed services. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine helped him win. It was painful to fight the independent directors who were against him.

The bad publicity that followed their ouster, by shareholders in the end, was intense. Rodrigo Buenaventura said that the episode was “a way of doing somethings which should be banned from the practices of Spanish firms”. There was speculation that Murtra would be sacked by Sánchez for not orchestrating events more quietly. He survived, and Indra reported its best ever results last year.

His next mission is? The Spanish government wants Telefónica to be a leading EU tech company, including in AI and cyber security. A cross-border merger could take place with a rival, such as Deutsche Telekom. However, this would require the EU antitrust regulators to loosen their grip. One option would be to merge with Spanish satellite group Hispasat, or even more outrageously, Indra.

A deal like that would not be simple. Murtra’s gentleness is not matched by his brutality when given orders.