The change of guard in the address of Telefónica also reaches its digital appendix and marks the end of one era and the beginning of another. Sebas Muriel, veteran of telecommunications with a classical executive profile, returns to the operator to occupy the position of Chief Digital Officer After the departure of Chema Alonso, who will take with him his disruptive style and hacker.
This movement is part of a major restructuring under the new leadership of Marc Murtra as executive president. While Alonso represented the commitment to the disruptive with his famous blue hat and his scooter, Muriel embodies a somewhat more traditional approach.
He is a telecommunications engineer with MBA of the IESE, a combination that is almost canonical in the Spanish business ecosystem.
Muriel’s professional history includes strategic positions in technology companies.
- He started at HP and Lucent Technologies.
- Then he made the leap to PWC as Senior Manager in 2001.
- In 2006 he was appointed General Director of Red.es (the public entity for digital development). There he led the strategic reposition of the entity.
- In 2011 he joined Tuenti as vice president of Corporate Affairs. This stage coincided with the integration of the network into the telephone ecosystem after purchase for 70 million euros before pivoting a virtual operator. In 2015 it became its CEO. After accessing the position he was interviewed by WorldOfSoftware mobile.
- That allowed him to pass Telefónica as a global director of Customer Experience Before leaving Groupm three years ago.
There he has led an important restructuring of the advertising group, achieving new accounts that reported more than 60 million euros in campaigns between 2022 and 2023.
Among the achievements that Telefónica stands out from Muriel is its “extensive experience in business management and digital transformation” and “its ability to promote transformation programs.”
The contrast with Alonso is remarkable: Where the outgoing CDO looked as a technical communicator and digital evangelizing, Muriel stands out for his managing profile and orientation to commercial results.
This change is a symptom that the Telefónica de Murtra, after years betting on aspirational disruption and conversations about transformation, now turns towards a more pragmatic approach.
This transition symbolizes a frequent pattern in large companies: after the period of technological evangelization represented by profiles such as Alonso, LLega the systematization and consolidation phase embodied in executives such as Muriel.
The challenge will now be to convert the visionary ideas of the previous stage into specific commercial results, preventing digital initiatives from being in breeding promises.
In WorldOfSoftware | 100 years after his birth, Telefónica faces the greatest existential dilemma in its history: what wants to be older
Outstanding image | Groupm, Telefónica
