SEPI Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales

• The symposium will be opened by the Minister of Finance, Mr. Cristóbal Montoro
• Monday, Ms. Cristina Garmendia, Mr. Fernando Abril, Mr. José Folgado and Mr. Esteban García will set out their experiences in the course of a symposium to be held at Campus Los Peñascales
• SEPI has joined the Board of Trustees of Fundación Cotec

Fundación SEPI has organized a monographic symposium on innovation which Monday, 22nd, will be attended by Cotec’s President, Ms. Cristina Garmendia, by Indra’s Chairman, Mr. Fernando Abril Martorell, by the highest person in charge of Red Eléctrica de España, Mr. José Folgado, and by NAVANTIA’s Chairman, Mr. Esteban García. All of them will put forward the experience of their organizations regarding R&D at a time when SEPI has made a strong commitment with technological innovation, which also reaches its companies. The colloquium will be chaired by Agencia EFE’s Chairman, Mr. José Antonio Vera.

These meetings were already anticipated by SEPI’s Chairwoman, Ms. Pilar Platero, on December 19th, together with an Award to Innovation which will be organized by Fundación SEPI, which seeks the recognition of innovative ideas, initiatives or methods submitted by employees from the companies which are part of this state-owned holding.

The call for this award, which will be held annually, is the result of the interest shown by SEPI’s Chairwoman on strongly promoting innovation within the whole holding, as shown by the recent setup, within the managerial structure of this state-owned company, of a new unit dedicated to digital transformation. The Award will feature two categories; one for technological initiatives, and another for knowledge-based ideas of a different nature. Each of these categories will be endowed with 3,000€. The award will recognize those projects which, while having never been used before, have generated value for the company, improved its productivity, its market position, its image or its working environment. The submitted initiatives can be up to three years old.

Admission into Fundación Cotec

As part of this clear commitment with innovation, SEPI has just become a member of the Board of Trustees of Fundación Cotec, within the category of Benefactor Trustee. This admission also shows the company’s commitment with the promotion of R&D, which it regards as a key factor for consolidating and increasing the level of competitiveness and of service of the companies which make up the Group.

Grupo SEPI is currently made up by 15 companies in which SEPI has a majority participation, and with very diversified corporate goals; these include the postal service,  shipbuilding, communication, food distribution, mining, corporate promotion and real estate management, as well as agrarian and environmental transformation, leisure and energy, among other activities. All of them feature a growing effort on improving the competitiveness of their production procedures through innovative projects, with the goal of promoting their activity and of expanding their presence on international markets, in line with the new growth model of the Spanish economy.

In the words of SEPI’s Chairwoman, Ms. Platero, “it is very important to make known the effort on innovation carried out by the Group’s companies, since a large number of our companies take part and compete on the markets, offering high-technology products”.

The Board of Trustees of Cotec, which has as its honorary President his HM the King, is made up by around 90 state-owned and private entities linked to innovation. The Strategic Plan of its Foundation includes new admissions into its Board of Trustees, adding representatives from the national innovation system which currently are either absent or underrepresented.