Mr. Josep Sánchez Llibre
Josep Sánchez Llibre, president of Foment del Treball Nacional, vice-president of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organisations, former member of the Parliament of Catalonia and the Congress of Deputies, former senator and honorary member of the Royal European Academy of Doctors (RAED), called for a new model of business leadership guided by responsibility, trust and teamwork in the address he delivered on 16 July at the graduation ceremony of EAE Business School Barcelona. The ceremony was held at Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi before more than 2,000 undergraduate and master’s graduates representing 95 nationalities and an audience of over 6,000 people.
“I have never understood leadership as a privilege. I have always understood it as a responsibility. That is why I believe a good leader is not someone who gets others to work for him, but someone who inspires people to work together on the same project,” he stated. The honorary academic structured his speech around four principles that he regards as essential to any ambitious undertaking: listening before speaking, generating trust, working as a team and understanding that nobody achieves important goals alone. He described trust as one of the principal assets on which companies, teams and personal relationships are built, warning that it is a fragile value that may take years to establish and can be lost in an instant. The president of Foment also invited the graduates to reflect on the legacy they wished to build over the course of their professional lives. “True success does not merely consist in going far, but in going far without losing what led us to begin the journey,” he remarked.
Separately, on 29 July Sánchez Llibre inaugurated the commercial office established by Foment in Shanghai to promote the internationalisation of Catalan companies in China by means of an industrial air bridge. There he met representatives of the municipal government of Changshu and Jiangsu Province to explore synergies between the two territories and encourage the reindustrialisation of the economy. “This agreement is not an end point, but a starting point for consolidating reciprocal investment and opening the Chinese market to more Catalan SMEs. Internationalisation is not merely about exporting. It means understanding the market, adapting, finding reliable partners and knowing the regulatory framework. These agreements with the Shanghai institutions will therefore provide our companies with a direct, effective and secure gateway,” he said.
Sánchez Llibre has received the Award of the Association of Self-Employed Workers of Catalonia and the Bernardo O’Higgins Medal, granted by the Government of Chile. He is an honorary member of the Official Association of Commercial and Business Graduates of Barcelona, and has received Foment del Treball’s Medal of Honour for Business Achievement, the Gold and Diamond Badge of RCD Espanyol, the Gold Medal of the Order of Chambers of Commerce of the Council of Chambers of Commerce, the Red Cross Medal for his personal commitment to the institution and its “Creu Roja Respon” humanitarian-emergency programme, and the Automobile Barcelona Medal of Honour. He is an honorary member of the Register of Auditor Economists of the General Council of Economists, has received the Gaudí Gresol Award for Reputation and Excellence in the Business Leadership category, and is the author of the book Les veritats de l’Estatut.
