Alfredo Sáenz Abad

[citation needed] He obtained his degree in law from the University of Valladolid, and in Economics from the Universidad de Deusto, Bilbao.

[4] That year, during his tenure as CEO, Banco Santander was named 'Best Bank in the world' by the business magazine Euromoney.

[citation needed] In February 2016, he was appointed president of the BDK Financial Group which controls the Bank of Dakar, headquartered in the capital of Senegal.

[citation needed] -1998: Alfredo Sáenz was awarded the Spanish government's Gold Medal (Medalla de Oro al Mérito en el trabajo) for his work.

[10] In 2011, the Supreme Court of Spain gave Sáenz a three-month ban from working as a banker, after a long legal action.

He was convicted in 2009 of false accusations against presumed debtors to Banesto, now a Santander subsidiary, who were briefly jailed over the affair in 1994.

On account of this, the authorities converted his prison sentence to a pardon, and replaced it with a lower penalty, in the form of a nominal fine.