Joan Julià

Graduate in Business Sciences and MBA from ESADE in 1985. ADP at LBS 1989. Fellow Chartered Director at IoD.

Until 1989 he worked at Arthur Andersen. Until 1992 he was the CFO of SATI, a leading family company in home textiles and technical fabrics in Spain. He promoted a strategic plan that alongside with the share capital increase of a PE resulted in an international expansion plan in Europe and a business turn-around. After completing a DG program (ADP program) at the London Business School, he joined Deretil (a family owned fine chemicals company) and later participated in the sale to the Dutch multinational group DSM N.V.

At DSM he is appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the new DSM Deretil division who emerges as the world leader in “Side chains”. With multiple production plants (Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Italy and India) and different management systems and clients around the world. He leads a profound restructuring, transformation and integration of all functions and countries making it the most profitable unit of the corporation for several years, while serving as “Country Manager” for the Corporation in Spain.

Between 2003 and 2006 he acts as Corporate General Manager of Cirsa (leader in gaming in the Spanish-speaking world with 12,000 employees) where he led a strategic plan for each division which led to significant growth both organically and via acquisitions in Europe and in Latam, going from €980 million to €1,600 million (2003-2005). He led the international issuance of high yield bonds for €420 million which allowed financing the group's growth.
He founded S&E Partners in 2006 with the aim of contributing a strategic vision to the Spanish companies, helping them grow in international markets and providing support in Business Development and M&A.
Between 2011 and 2014 he acted as CEO of Parkare Group (owned by two PE´s), carrying out a complete turnaround of the company until its sale to an Italian multinational company.

In 2015 he completed the “Making Corporate Boards more effective” programme at Harvard Business School and in 2017 he was awarded the Chartered Director title from the Institute of Directors in London.

He is Advisory Director of the Investcorp Europe private equity fund, investor in start-ups and trustee of Prodis foundation.