PADAS

Entrepreurship

As an independent entrepreneur he has also helped to start up several prominent businesses in Spain, including Aguas de Mondariz, Balneario de Mondariz, Publicidad Gisbert, Group Negocios and Thomil.

Diego del Alcázar and IE Business School

His firm commitment to fostering a spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation extends beyond his prolific work at IE Business School (or Instituto de Empresa), that is currently ranked among the five best business schools in Europe, according to the Financial Times ranking of MBA schools.

Diego del Alcázar’s innovative spirit is reflected on continuously undertaking interesting projects. A good example is the latest acquisition of the IE Business School having acquired SEK University in Segovia, Spain, in January 2007. The new university will be called IE University and will bring a new phase of challenging development for the institution, adding new fields of knowledge and undergraduate programs to its portfolio as part of its drive to be a world leader in the education sector. Diego del Alcázar is fully involved with launching the new international university. an active part in all strategy aspects with the new university, firmly convinced that the university will be competing with elite European and US universities for the best candidate by offering official titles in key corporate sectors together with other fields of knowledge.

IE Business School thus remains committed to academic excellence, internationalisation, innovation and new technologies, coupled with the spirit of entrepreneurship and a humanistic approach.

Art Collection and Support

A keen supporter of the arts, he is Vice-president of the Foundation for the Support of History of Hispanic Art, that backs young doctorates in arts and publish their works, and Vice-president of the Spanish Foundation for the Development of Corporate Patronage. In 1985, in collaboration with the José Ortega y Gasset Foundation, he created the Juan Lladó Award, which is now recognized as one of the most prestigious awards within the business community in the field of patronage.

Diego del Alcázar’s personal interests include collecting contemporary and classical art. During the past three years the collection of his paintings have formed part of the most famous museum´s temporary exhibitions worldwide, such as Guggenheim, Museo Nacional del Prado, the Tate Gallery in the UK, Los Angeles Museum of Art, among others.

Mr. del Alcázar recently completed a-12-year lasting restoration of a noble palace in the northern Spain, which won the Special Mention Award of Europa Nostra in 2006.

The earliest references on record to the “place” and tower and municipality and inheritance of the Palace appear in the eighth century. From the late middle ages to the mid fifteenth century, the site’s overriding priority was that of protection and defence as evidenced by the “tower-fortress”, architectonic style, complemented with an additional storey. During the sixteenth century, the influence of the renaissance movement that had taken place in Italy during the previous century began to spread throughout Europe, fuelling the renovation of Spain’s older civil buildings to bring them into line with the new style, and equipping them with the courtyards and façades that are so characteristic of sixteenth-century Spanish renaissance palaces.

At this time in history, when there was no longer such an urgent need to make defence an overriding objective, property extensions were now mainly for aesthetic purposes and hence the stronghold became a prime example of suburban noble architecture of the sixteenth century, markedly renaissance in style, shedding the medieval functions described later.

This example is an unusual one in Castilian – and Spanish - architecture and history because hardly any medieval and Renaissance mansions remained in the countryside as the Monarchs insisted on the presence of the nobles in the Court. Only at the end of the 18th century and in Andalusia did noble mansions appear outside the towns.

This is therefore an unusual house for Spain, one that existed at the same time as the great Italian houses or villas. It gives witness to how life was lived as from the High Middle Ages and is therefore a significant part of the Spanish heritage.