RACEF

Born in 1943 in A Coruña (Spain), Dr. Quintás is married and has two children. Throughout his career, he has combined academic excellence with a profound interest in finding ways to apply academic insight to solve real-life problems. This has resulted in an equally distinguished professional career beyond pure academics which interlaced with (and often spurred) his academic interests.

Dr. Quintás graduated in Economics and Business Administration in the University of Bilbao and followed up with PHD in Economics, obtaining a summa cum laude and an extraordinary award for his doctoral thesis. He then went on to rank number one nation-wide in the competitive public contest for professorship tenure.

His research initially focused on neglected areas of Economic Theory, producing pioneering work on areas such as the functioning of black markets and the theory of the firm in centrally planned economies. Following the award of an important private grant, he then went on to conduct landmark research on the Economics of Education, which eventually combined with his interest in public service and led to him run for (and being elected as) Member of Congress during the first Spanish legislature in the transition to Democracy.

That, in turn, fostered his fertile involvement in the Economics of Regional Development, both at an academic level (for instance, producing the first-ever Input-Output Tables for the Region of Galicia and becoming a national reference for this type of work), as well as in having a direct impact on the gestation of the constitutional framework for the then newly autonomous Regions in Spain.

Dr. Quintás’ professional career took a new turn in 1984, as he became involved in the banking sector as a senior executive. This eventually lead to the CEO and Presidency roles of the Spanish Savings Banks Association, as well as his presence in and contributions to numerous company boards, public bodies regulating the well-functioning of the financial system, national commissions set up by Law and non-profit foundations. All of this in parallel spurred a new direction to his academic research, namely that related to the strategy, technology, efficiency and corporate social responsibility of the Spanish financial sector. His research activity in this field continues to this day.