Chairman of ScottishPower
Ignacio Galán is Executive Chairman of Iberdrola and Chairman of the subsidiary companies in the United Kingdom (ScottishPower), the United States (Avangrid) and Brazil (Neoenergia).
Born in Salamanca in 1950, throughout his career he has managed leading companies in various industrial and technological sectors, profoundly changing the profile of all of them based on his vision of the future and his ability to anticipate new trends.
Since his arrival at Iberdrola Group in 2001, his focus on international expansion and his commitment to electrification as an essential driver of emissions reduction have led the company to invest more than €175 billion in renewable energy, smart grids, energy storage and the exploration of new technologies, making it the leading electricity utility in Europe and one of the two largest in the world by market capitalisation. Iberdrola is now present in dozens of countries including Spain, the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Australia, Germany, France, Portugal and Italy, and supplies energy to more than 100 million people.
Selected in 2019 by Harvard Business Review as one of the five most important CEOs in the world and the first in the utilities sector, Ignacio Galán is convinced of the importance of promoting young talent and the exchange of experiences, cultures and knowledge as essential factors for the motivation of an increasingly global team. For this reason, since his arrival at Iberdrola, he has promoted pioneering policies that promote training, equality, diversity and inclusion.
He is a member of the World Economic Forum (Davos), the Global Leaders Council of UNICEF's Generation Unlimited organisation, of the European Round Table for Industry (ERT) and the JP Morgan International Council.
Institutional activity and recognition of Ignacio Galán
Ignacio Galán holds Honorary Doctorates from the universities of Salamanca and Comillas in Spain, Edinburgh and Strathclyde in the UK, and is a Visiting Professor at the University of Strathclyde. He also chairs the Social Council of the University of Salamanca and is a member of the Presidential Advisory Board of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
In 2014 he was awarded by Queen Elizabeth II as honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his work to promote the British energy sector and UK-Spain trade and investment relations.
In 2023 he was included on TIME100 Climate List of the 100 most influential leaders driving business climate action, he was recognized with the Best Business Leadership in Energy Transition award from the El Periódico de la Energía, and he was acknowledge, for the twelfth time, Best Chief Executive of European Electric Companies, according to the Institutional Investor Research Group.
In 2025, Galán was recognised with the Business Person of the Year 2025 award by Universitat Pompeu Fabra – Barcelona School of Management, for his forward-thinking vision, commitment to innovation, and dedication to society. That year he received the award to the Best CEO of European Utilities at the Extel 2025 Awards Europe & Emerging EMEA Equities Awards.