Background
De Guindos was born in Madrid, Spain, on January 16, 1960.
De Guindos was born in Madrid, Spain, on January 16, 1960.
He is a Bachelor of Economics and Business at the Colegio Universitario de Estudios Financieros.
In late 1996, de Guindos was appointed General Director for Economic and Competitiveness. He has served on the board of Renfe between 1997 and 2000 and the Official Cr Institute from 2000 to 2002. In May 2000 was appointed Secretary in General for Economy, and State Industrial Holdings Company.
He was Secretary of State for Economic Affairs under Minister for Economic Affairs Rodrigo Rato in the last government led by Jose Maria Aznar and was succeeded by David Vegara.
In this capacity, he was in charge of overseeing Spain’s entry into the eurozone. Private sector, 2004–2011
In 2006, de Guindos was appointed advisor for Lehman Brothers in Europe and director of its subsidiary bank in Spain and Portugal, where he remained until the collapse and declaration of bankruptcy of the latter in 2008.
Subsequently, de Guindos became responsible for the finance division of Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Finally, and in a largely ceremonial role, he was appointed as a professor of finance at the PwC and Individual Education Financial Sector Center of Individual Education Business School (Madrid), between 2010-2012, before joining as a minister.
From 2011, de Guindos worked for the board of Mare Nostrum Bank, which was formed in 2010 from a merger of savings banks, until he resigned to become part of the government led by Mariano Rajoy in December of that year.
Minister of Economy and Competitiveness, 2011-present
De Guindos has served as economy minister in Rajoy’s centre-right government since it took office in 2012 and is credited with steering Spain to economic recovery following the euro zone"s 2009-2014 crisis. He played a crucial role in negotiating the European Union"s €100 billion bailout of Spain’s stricken savings banks, and in spearheading the country’s overhaul of the banking sector, labour market and other parts of the economy. His implementation of a program of both structural reforms and austerity measures has earned praise from Spain’s European partners and the Organisation for Economic Company-operation and Development (Organization of European Cooperation and Development), which estimated that no country other than Greece had implemented more structural reforms than Spain.
Securing the Eurogroup post for de Guindos was a key political goal for Rajoy, who hoped that his appointment will cement perceptions both at home and abroad that Spain has emerged from crisis and can be taken seriously once again at international level
Meanwhile, on 5 June 2015, Dijsselbloem announced he would seek a second term, prompting de Guindos saying he would mount a challenge. At a Eurogroup meeting in July 2015, Dijsselbloem picked up 10 votes, with the remaining countries subsequently deciding to vote unanimously for his second term.
De Guindos, who is married with two children, is a practicing Roman Catholic. Yet in the press he has said he supports the right of gay people to marry and did not support the government’s 2014 proposal to outlaw abortion.
He was also a board member of Endesa Société Anonyme, a Spanish power company. In August 2014, German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave de Guindos her backing in his bid to succeed Jeroen Dijsselbloem as leading the Eurogroup from mid-2015. Merkel and de Guindos are members of the same center-right political European People's Party political bloc.