User:Salmorejo20/Felipe Benjumea Llorente

Felipe Benjumea Llorente (Seville, 1957) is an entrepreneur and of solutions for the energy transition at international level. His father was Javier Benjumea Puigcerver, first Marquis of Puebla de Cazalla and founder of Abengoa.

Since 2018 he is president of H2B2, a company in the renewable energy sector dedicated to hydrogen.

Early years and education
Born in Seville on September 14, 1957, within the marriage between Javier Benjumea Puigcerver and Julia Llorente Zuazola. He is the ninth of thirteen brothers. His school stage takes place in Seville, where he attends primary and secondary studies in the Jesuits. With 16 years, he moved to study in Bilbao, to the University of Deusto, where he obtained a Law Degree in 1980. During the military service, he expanded his training with a Diploma of Business Management by the Official Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Navigation of Seville. He then moved to the United States, where he expanded his studies in Economics at The Economics Institute, in Colorado.

Family
In 1989 he married Blanca de Porres Guardiola in the Church of Santa María la Blanca (Seville). In 1990 his first daughter, Blanca, was born, followed by Alejandra (1991), Felipe (1993) and Carla (1995).

Professional begining
Already entered the 80s and after completing his academic stage, he began a period of professional practices at the Urquijo Bank of Madrid and then at Citibank in Paris. In 1983, Felipe Benjumea joined the Board of Directors of Abengoa, a multinational founded by his father, Javier Benjumea Puigcerver, in 1941, who was its president until 1991 and honorary president until his death in 2001. In 1989 he was appointed CEO.

Presidency of Abengoa: 1991-2015
In 1991, Felipe Benjumea reached the position of Executive President, which he will hold until 2015. During his 24 years at the helm of the company, the Andalusian firm moved from the development of electrical and telecommunications assemblies to the renewable energy sector after the sale Televent and Befesa already projected globally with a presence in 60 countries.

1991: Evolution and internationalization
Under the presidency of Felipe Benjumea Llorente, Abengoa launched a business model change to evolve from an assembly and installation company to a company with more added value through technology, assuming projects in a comprehensive way as responsible for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of plants and with an approach based on internationalization and R+D+i.

The 90s: Wind energy, environment and IPO
Following the change in direction decided in 1991, Abengoa entered the renewable energy sector. An agreement with the Californian company US Windpower is signed, with which the wind power plant in Tarifa, one of the first three plants inaugurated in Spain, is put into operation.

IPO, purchase of BEFESA and sale of the wind business
After a first presence in the 1980s, Abengoa returned to the Spanish stock market in 1996. In previous years, the company had expanded its lines of activity with the environment, the pumping stations and mini-hydraulic plants that it was already carrying out, managing and recycling of waste and desalination and purification of water, reason that motivates the purchase of BEFESA. As a listed company, Abengoa sells its wind business.

2000-2005: Bet on biofuels and entry into the United States
At the end of the 90s and the beginning of the new decade, Abengoa opened up to the biofuels sector, after identifying it as a business and technological development opportunity. The construction of a biofuel plant in Cartagena is launched, a project called Ecocarburantes, to sell ethanol to Repsol and Cepsa. The purchase in 2001 of the American High Plains, which already had three ethanol plants in the United States, consolidates Abengoa's commitment to biofuels and marks the entry into the United States market.

2005-2015: Solar thermal energy projects
The company creates its own R&D division as a center for development, idea generation and innovation and decides to focus its business on biofuels and solar thermal energy. At this time, Abengoa sells Telvent to Schneider in an operation that valued the subsidiary at around 1,360 million euros and also sells a part of Befesa related to waste management and treatment.

In this field, Abengoa specialized in the 70s in the manufacture of heliostats that were exported to Israel, world leaders in this type of energy. From this, Abengoa goes from being a supplier to building and managing plants in an integral way, which materialized in 2007 with the works of PS10, which with a 114-meter-high central tower and a field of 624 heliostats, it is the first solar thermal plant, in Sanlúcar la Mayor (Seville). Two years later, in 2009, a second plant was inaugurated in the same area, called PS20.

In 2009, Abengoa inaugurates its new headquarters for the Palmas Altas Campus, in Seville. The building, designed by the award-winning architect Richard Rogers with the Pritzker Prize, was conceived as a functional and environmentally and energy-sustainable space.

In 2010, former President of the United States Barack Obama announced during his address on Saturdays the commission to Abengoa for the largest solar thermal plant in the world, with a generation capacity of 280 MW of electrical energy. Three years later, in 2013, the works of La Solana are finished. The plant, located in Gila Bend, Arizona, 110 km southwest of Phoenix, would become the largest parabolic trough plant in the world and the first to store thermal energy in molten salt.

One year after the launch of La Solana, in December 2014, Abengoa completed the construction of the Mojave solar thermal plant, located 90 km northwest of Los Angeles.

At this stage, AbengoaYield is created, which will go public in the United States in June 2014, one year after its creation.

2015: Leaving Abengoa
On September 23, 2015, he was terminated by imposition of Banco Santander, a fact that was demonstrated in the National Court -as stated in Proven Fact three of the final Judgment of January 11, 2018. This imposition came within the framework of the negotiations with the banks for a capital increase to strengthen liquidity. Finally, the company announced a creditors' bankruptcy in November 2015 and was expelled from the IBEX 35 as of November 27 of the same year. Felipe's older brother, Javier Benjumea Llorente, was vice president of the company from 1991 to 2007. Later, he was Chairman of the Abengoa International Advisory Council.

New stage dedicated to hydrogen and electric mobility
In September 2016, Felipe Benjumea began advising H2B2, a company in the renewable energy sector dedicated to hydrogen. In November 2018, he was appointed president of the company, a position he currently holds. In October 2019, he was appointed as non-executive director of Infinity Lithium.

Other activities
Felipe Benjumea has served on the Board of Directors of the Spanish Energy Club, Iberia and Banco Santander Central Hispano. He receives the Scientific Merit Medal from the Center for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research (CIEMAT) and the Grand Cross of Naval merit.