The former president of Telefónica, Cesar Alierta, He has died at 78 years of age after his health condition deteriorated considerably in recent weeks. Alierta was admitted seriously ill to a clinic in Zaragoza this Wednesday, as reported by the Herald of Aragonwhere he finally died.
Alierta was born in Zaragoza on May 5, 1945. He studied law at the University of Zaragoza and also has a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Columbia University in New York. Cesar Alierta was president of Telefónica from 2000 to 2016, where he played an important role in the Spanish telecommunications company. He was one of those in charge of the company’s global expansion, and during his tenure he also diversified Telefónica’s businesses with new products and services.
Before his time at the telecommunications giant, Cesar Alierta presided over Tabacalera from 1991 to 1996. It is a former public company created by Franco that controlled the tobacco and stamp monopoly in Spain. Alierta, in fact, was responsible for privatizing the entity and the merger with the French competing company. seita with the aim of forming Altadis.
Cesar Alierta’s journey: from the Tabacalera case to becoming president of Telefoníca
Cesar Alierta also starred in the Tabacaler Casea, a corruption case in Spain in which some of the relatives of the former president of Telefónica are also involved, after in 1997 the executive earned 1.86 million euros with the purchase of shares in Tabacalera thanks to the fact that he allegedly made use of of confidential information. In 2009, the Provincial Court of Madrid considered the crime of use of privileged information proven, but both Alierta, who from the beginning denied the accusations, as well as his wife and his nephew, became grandparents after the prescription of the case.
The truth is Cesar Alierta’s health has been considerably fragile in recent years. During the summer of 2020, the executive suffered two heart attacks; one of them a cardiorespiratory arrest that forced him to enter a hospital north of Madrid. After an induced coma, he was discharged, and during these last months he has dedicated his time to teaching disadvantaged people.
In any case, and despite his extensive career as president in different companies, Cesar Alierta, we reiterate, played an important role in Telefónica. Alierta was responsible for the alliance with the Asian telecommunications company China Unicom. The executive resigned from his position as president of the company in 2016, the date on which he began to be president of the Telefónica Foundation. Since then, his successor has been José María Álvarez-Pallete, who currently holds the position of executive president.