Bankinter CEO María Dolores Dancausa, the only woman on Forbes list of top CEOs in Spain

Bankinter’s chief executive officer, María Dolores Dancausa, has been named the seventh top executive by Forbes magazine in its recently published ranking of top 50 CEOs of listed companies in Spain. María Dolores Dancausa is the only woman on the ranking.

The magazine notes that ‘naturally, for another consecutive year, not only is a woman CEO, María Dolores Dancausa (Bankinter), standing among the top 10 remarkable, but also that she be the only woman among the 50 names on the ranking’. The ranking only lists chief executive officers and not other top executives.

The renowned magazine points out that the finance industry is one of the most present industries on this ranking. It further notes that Bankinter and one other Spanish entity find themselves ‘among the most profitable banks in Europe’.

Bankinter’s top executive entered Forbes’ ranking of top CEOs in 2014. Since then, she has maintained a noteworthy presence.

There are four criteria Forbes follows to prepare its ranking. First, companies must be publicly traded in Spain and their CEOs must have helped increase returns to shareholders above the average of listed companies as well as listed entities in their industry. Second, the panel (composed of representatives from investment banks, fund managers, head-hunters, consulting firms and business schools) mainly considered companies’ digital transformation efforts, leadership, recruitment, management and strategic capacity. Following a vote (the third filter), the fourth parameter is that companies and entities’ management should be in line with Forbes’ values, such as innovation, business freedom and leadership.