Jorge Unda has been selected as CEO for SENER, replacing Jorge Sendagorta, who previously combined the positions of president and CEO.
Jorge Unda was the managing director of the Engineering and Construction unit of the SENER Group.
Unda becomes the top executive of the company and Sendagorta remains as president of SENER’s Board of Directors.
An industrial engineer in the field of Mechanics from the Higher School of Industrial Engineering of Bilbao (Spain), University of the Basque Country, and doctor of industrial engineering from the ESII (Higher School of Industrial Engineers) of San Sebastian (Spain), University of Navarra, Jorge Unda has had a long career at SENER. He joined the company in 1986 as a Project Engineer, and subsequently became a Project Manager in the aerospace field. In 1997, aged 38, he was appointed Deputy Managing Director and, in 1998, Managing Director of SENER. Unda has also been a member of the CEIT (Center for Technical Research Studies) of Guipuzcoa (Biscay, Spain) since 1999, and a member of the Basque Council of Science, Technology and Innovation.
Greatly honoured with this new responsibility, Jorge Unda stated: “I am thrilled to lead the SENER Group in this crucial stage, which presents a significant and exciting challenge for engineering in the current global context.” In addition, he paid tribute to his predecessor, Jorge Sendagorta, praising him for his work as the head of SENER for more than three decades, during which he spent the greatest part of this time as the CEO. Unda also referred to the splendid team that he will have at his side to shape the new common project.
Jorge Sendagorta, who turned 65 a few months ago, reflected: “Time inevitably catches up on us. With the opportunities that we have ahead of us, there is no-one better placed to lead SENER than Jorge Unda.
“The appointment is the result of the merits, experience and success that Jorge Unda has accumulated throughout his solid career. The new CEO fully shares the culture and the values of SENER and the family, and he acknowledges, in the company and in the sector, the leadership that we need in this new stage for SENER, which is full of potential.”
In the last decade, SENER has been at the forefront of global engineering, with projects that have represented major technological leaps in the international field. In Aerospace, Proba-3, Meteosat Third Generation or Rosetta. Projects such as those carried out in energy with plants like Gemasolar or the NOORo solar complex, destined to be the largest in the world. Unique infrastructures, such as the high-speed HS2 line in the United Kingdom, preliminary engineering of the first high-speed line in California, or the intercity passenger train between the cities of Toluca and Mexico City. Furthermore, the development of greater technological capacities of its own software, FORAN, with which more than one thousand ships have been designed worldwide.