Rafael del Pino y Moreno, founder of Ferrovial Group and the Rafael del Pino Foundation, has passed away. He was 87.
In 2000 he retired from his position as Chairman of Ferrovial. His son, Rafael del Pino Calvo Sotelo (who also holds an MBA from MIT), now heads the Ferrovial Group. We had lunch with him when he visited Boston back in April. In 2006 Ferrovial acquired BAA, the world's largest airport operator, for ~$20Billion. BAA manages seven British airports, including London's Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. Major construction projects undertaken by Ferrovial include the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum and major airports around the world. Ferrovial also has a strong presence in the US with the control of the Chicago Skyway highway concesion for example. Ferrovial currently has over 100,000 employees.
Since 2000 Rafael del Pino focused on creating the Rafael del Pino Foundation, with the objective of creating weatlh, competitiveness, and dynamism in the Spanish economy by improving the capabilities and business training of the leaders of the future. The foundation has a competitive scholarship program that fully sponsors MBA studies (about $150,000 per scholarship) in the top business schools in the world. The goal is to contribute to further educate the people that for their academic or professional excellence will be the leaders of the future. The list of awardees is here.
I want to thank his economical and personal effort that has allowed me to study at MIT and put me in the path to achieve my goals in life. I would also like to express my condolences to his family and friends.
He was a great person. I met him twice and he was outstanding, an example for many of us.
Posted by: Francisco | October 16, 2008 at 07:41 PM