Graduate in Economic and Business Science from the Commercial University of Deusto (Bilbao)
Finance and Strategic Planning from the University of Leeds (UK)

Born in Bilbao in 1954 and married with two children, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri began his career as a teacher of Strategic Planning at the Commercial University of Deusto during 1977 and 1979. Parallel to this, he entered the Banco de Bilbao (BB) in 1977. In 1992 he was appointed General Manager of BBV and in 1994 joined the Management Committee.  In 1995 he became General Manager of Commercial Banking in Spain and General Manager for Latin America in the course of all BBV expansion in Latin America.
Following the merger with Argentaria, he was appointed General Manager of the Group, being in charge of retail transactions for BBVA worldwide. In 2001 he was appointed Managing Director of the bank, a post he retained until 2009. Throughout this period, he was also Director of BBVA-Bancomer (Mexico), Citic Bank (China) and CIFH (Hong Kong).
During his career, he has also been a Director and Vice-Chairman of Telefónica (2000-2003), Vice-Chairman of Repsol (2002-2003) and Spanish Chairman of the Spain – USA Foundation (2005-2009), of which he is currently Honorary Patron.
He is now also Director of APD, a post he has maintained since 2004, Patron of the Spanish Confederation of Managers and Executives (CEDE) and Vice-Chairman of the Deusto Business School.