IESE Alumni Pay Homage to Professor Rafael Termes
Remembering Professor Termes

IESE alumni paid homage to professor Rafael Termes, who passed away in August 2005, at the extraordinary session of the Continuity Program held at IESE headquarters in Madrid, where Termes had been a driving force, director and honorary professor.

Speakers at the event, which was attended by over 200 people, included José Luis Leal, president of the Spanish Association of Private Banking and former minister of the Economy (1979-1980), and Pedro Solbes, vice president of the government and Minister of the Economy. Jordi Canals, general manager of the school, Juan José Toribio, professor and director of IESE in Madrid, and Antonio Argandoña, full professor of economics and deputy general manager of IESE, all participated on behalf of IESE.

The title of the event was “Economics, Banking and Humanism,” and throughout the session, the personality, life and activities of Rafael Termes were examined.

Excessive Public Expenditure, Rafael Termes’s “Arch-Enemy”

José Luis Leal reviewed and explained Rafael Termes’s dealings in banking as president of the Spanish Banking Association (AEB). In his talk, he stressed Termes’s key role in the evolution of the Spanish financial system, as both actor and academic. Leal also highlighted Rafael Termes’s liberal thinking, as he recalled his drive to convert “financial enterprises into efficient entities within the service they provide to both society and their partners.” He also added that “Rafael Termes had a clear enemy he was also confronting: public expenditure.”

The president of the Spanish Association of Private Banking claimed that “the passage of time has shown Rafael Termes to be right when he started AEB and promoted its role in the banking system.” Currently, “membership in the EU and the euro,” he continued, “have meant an advance along the byways of economic liberalism, and Rafael Termes played a key part in forging this path.”

A “Rich and Diverse” Professional Career

Pedro Solbes closed the event, and in his talk he defined Termes as “an economist who spread and preached savings, as opposed to the excesses of the state and public expenditure.” He also explained that defining Rafael Termes as “a conservative liberal is an absurd simplification,” since his professional career was much richer and more diverse.

Finally, the current Minister of the Economy for Spain stressed “Rafael Termes’s modernizing attitude toward the banking system, favorable to regulation and the opening of the system to competition.”

In his talk, Jordi Canals highlighted three essential facets of Rafael Termes’s professional career: “He was a wonderful teacher, an excellent and rigorous researcher, and he had a varied, diverse career in the world of enterprise.” He also underscored the ties between professor Termes and the birth and evolution of IESE.