Telefonica said its shareholders approved the re-election of Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete as executive director and chairman for another four-year term at an AGM held in Madrid that also saw the unveiling of a new corporate identity and company logo. Alvarez-Pallete secured the backing of 84.6 percent of shareholders at the meeting, up from the 80.2 percent he received in 2017 after replacing Cesar Alierta. Shareholders also approved the appointment of Carmen Garcia de Andres, Ignacio Moreno and Francisco Jose Riberas as directors.
In his intervention, Alvarez-Pallete took stock of the 2020 financial year and highlighted the impact of the pandemic on the operator as a result of lower global economic activity. "Telefonica is not immune, but it is resilient,” he said, adding that the company achieved a net profit of close to EUR 1.6 billion in 2020, 40 percent more than in the previous year, in spite of the crisis.
Separately, the operator unveiled its first change of logo since 1998, designed to visually project a “more modern, flexible and digital Telefonica” and reflect the new company resulting from the strategic plan launched in November 2019. The logo, now in force in all of Telefonica's markets and across all units, is made up of five circles forming the letter 'T'. It is intended to reclaim and evoke the company’s classic logo created in 1984 but in a more “stylised, agile and modern” manner, said Telefonica.
It was developed by the company's branding team with the support of Lambie Nairn, the exclusive account management division of Superunion, WPP's branding consultancy, which has been working with the group for more than 10 years
