in Barcelona at the age of 101. Who was an important actor in the motor industry in Spain, commanding Nissan Motor Ibérica for almost two decades, was characterized by having persistent business concerns, only comparable to his right-wing ideological convictions and conservative nature: a declared Falangist, he served as a defender and disseminator of . He raised five children and one of them, Álvaro, is a senior executive at Telefónica and a person of maximum trust at . Another of his offspring, Alejandro, is part of Joan Laporta’s team of faithful collaborators on the Barça board. Laporta himself had a parental relationship with Juan Echevarría, during the time he was married to his daughter Constanza.
To justify his longevity and vigor, Juan Echevarría boasted of good genes and avoided disciplined physical routines. A good reader, he confessed to having a predilection for Luis Cernuda and Juan Ramón Jiménez. He had a doctorate in Law from the University of Barcelona, a degree in Political Science from the University of Madrid, a degree in Higher Business Studies from the Institute of Higher Studies of the University of Navarra and a diploma in Industrial Relations from the University of Massachusetts (United States).
Echevarría was closely linked to the university world for decades, holding the chairs of Sociology in the faculties of Law and Economic Sciences of the University of Barcelona, as founder and director of the Colegio Mayor San Jorge of said university, and as the first president of the Social Council of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
He held the presidency of Nissan in Spain in the eighties, of the electric company Fecsa (a subsidiary of Endesa in Catalonia) in the nineties and, later, of the cable company Menta until 2000. In the political arena, Echevarría was part of the first Catalan Popular Alliance (AP) in the seventies and in the regional elections of 1980 he was part of the AP lists.
In 2004, he assumed the presidency of Mutua Universal, whose board of directors he had been a member of since 1987, a position from which he definitively promoted the entity’s leap towards modernity. During his time at the head of Mutua Universal, Echevarría “strived to recover and preserve the historical values of mutualism, as well as the incessant search for excellence and good corporate governance,” the company explained in the statement announcing the businessman’s death.
has regretted the death of Echevarría Puig, whom he has defined as “a man of dialogue and a well of knowledge.”
Throughout his professional career, Echevarría was distinguished with various decorations and recognitions, such as the Cross of the Order of Cisneros, the Great Plaque of the Order of Postal Merit (1976), the Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit (2003), the Silver Cross of the Civil Guard and the Cross of Military Merit (2017), the Key to the City of Barcelona, the Order of the Sacred Treasure awarded by the Emperor of Japan (1995). Also, the Creu de Sant Jordi from the Generalitat (1998), the Guardó d’Honor from the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona (1997) or the medal of Honor for Business Career from Foment del Treball (2023).
