Miguel Corgos López-Prado, Treasurer and Minister of Public Administration for the Xunta de Galicia, has joined the board of Impulsa Galicia, the Galician Association for the Development of Strategic Projects.  Corgos will represent the regional government, replacing the previous treasurer, Valeriano Martínez García.

Impulsa’s board is led by Francisco Conde, the Xunta’s Vice President of the Economy.  His second in command is the managing director of Abanca, Francisco Botas.  Other members of the board include the Xunta’s Minister for Rural Affairs José González; Emilio Bruquetas, the CEO of Reganosa; José Eduardo Álvarez-Naveiro the director of corporate governance and legal affairs at Abanca; and Abanca’s head of legal advice Eduardo Cortizo.  Independent advisors include the former president of the Xunta and current professor of Applied Economics at the University of A Coruña, Fernando González Laxe; Santiago Lago Penas, a professor of Applied Economics at the University of Vigo; Amparo Alonso Betanzos, the president of the Spanish Association of Artificial Intelligence; and the vice governor of the Council of Europe Development Bank, Rosa María Sánchez-Yebra.

The board met in Santiago to discuss the development status of each of the projects that the organisation is working on, in addition to looking at other potential opportunities.

The organisation

With 5 million euros of founding capital behind it, Impulsa was established in April 2021 as a joint venture between the Xunta de Galicia (40%), Abanca (38%), Reganosa (12%), and Sogama (10%).  The entity has been entrusted with developing business initiatives with the tractor effect that will support the development, progress, and transformation of the Galician economy by using a digital and green model.  It was born out of the objective to incentivise productive activity among the community by attracting investment, forging partnerships, and fostering collaboration between public and private institutions with a view to launch and consolidate new businesses ideas.

Above all, Impulsa’s objective is to support and expand the reach of the Pole for the Transformation of Galicia, an initiative from the Xunta de Galicia that forms part of the strategy for applying for access to NextGenerationEU funding.  It also aims to follow the principles of circularity and sustainability, as well as being ‘green’, digital, inclusive, generating wealth in the local community, and combining the interests of approximately thirty SMEs as well as those of larger companies.