Telefonica‘s board of directors and its committees have unanimously agreed at its meeting today to reconstitute its governing body after the voluntary resignations presented by proprietary directors Ignacio Moreno, who represented BBVA, and Jordi Gual, representative of CaixaBank, as indicated by the operator in a relevant event sent to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV).

His resignation breaks the historical tradition by which both financial entities, which have constituted the hard core of Telefonica‘s capital in recent decades, had two directors. Now, they will have only one, in line with their current participation in the capital, which moves around 5%. Industry sources point out that, with this presence, it is more logical that they have only one representative on the board of directors, compared to the two they had until now. Isidro Faine, the most senior director at Telefonica, will continue to represent CaixaBank, while José María Abril will do the same with BBVA.

The teleco has indicated that, with this movement, it will continue with the implementation “of the best practices and recommendations in matters of corporate governance with regard to the number and composition of its board,” which will go from 17 to 15 members.

“This resizing of the board sets the total number of members at 15, of which nine will be independent directors”, indicates the company, adding that it has reinforced its “firm commitment to the presence of women in the company, raising to 33 % their participation in the council ”.

Both Ignacio Moreno and Jordi Gual will continue to be linked to the telecommunications company. The company explains that it is planning to propose the appointment of both as members of the advisory board of Telefónica España, and as members of the board of directors of Telefonica Brasil, the group’s main listed subsidiary.

Telefonica’s board of directors and the committees held within it have also unanimously approved the appointment of independent director Maria Luisa Garcia Blanco as member and chairman of the Sustainability and Quality committee, replacing Javier de Paz in that chairmanship. The veteran director and manager of Telefonica will remain as a member of said committee, in addition to being appointed chairman of the Institutional Affairs and Regulation committee.

In addition, the independent directors Juan Ignacio Cirac and Carmen Garcia de Andres will join this last committee as members.

In turn, the recently appointed independent director Maria Rotondo joins the Audit and Control committee as a member.