Carlos Espinosa de los Monteros

Carlos Espinosa de los Monteros y Bernaldo de Quirós was born in Madrid on 18 March 1944, the second son of Francisco Javier Espinosa de los Monteros y Herreros de Tejada, third Marquess of Valtierra, and Galinda Bernaldo de Quirós y Alcalá-Galiano. Through his father he was a great-grandson of Carlos Espinosa de los Monteros y Sagaseta de Ilurdoz, the soldier and diplomat who was the first Marquess of Valtierra. Through his mother he was a grandson of Jesús Bernaldo de Quirós, a member of parliament and Grandee of Spain, and a great-grandson of Emilio Alcalá Galiano, a minister of state under Alfonso XII.

He went to the Marist brothers' Chamberí school in Madrid, close to the family home. He graduated in law from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1965 and in business administration from ICADE in 1966, then spent 1966 and 1967 on an MBA at Northwestern University in Chicago. In 1969 he passed the competitive examination for Spain's senior corps of state commercial technicians and economists.

Espinosa de los Monteros began in the Ministry of Commerce from 1969 to 1972 and then served as Spain's commercial counsellor in Chicago until 1976. He returned to Madrid as commercial director of the Instituto Nacional de Industria, the state holding company for publicly owned businesses, from 1976 to 1979, and was its vice president from 1979 to 1982.

After the Socialist victory in the 1982 election, Felipe González appointed him chairman of Iberia and Aviaco. He designed a restructuring plan that cut the airline's losses of 30,000 million pesetas, about 180 million euros today, to zero within three years, and he served on the executive committee of the International Air Transport Association. He left both airlines in 1985, the same year he inherited the title of Marquess of Valtierra from his father.

In 1988 he moved into the motor industry as chief executive of Mercedes-Benz España, becoming its chairman as well in 1990 and staying until 2009. During those years he led the transformation of the company's plant in Vitoria, an investment of more than 1,000 million euros, and later also headed DaimlerChrysler's Spanish holding company. He was president of the carmakers' association ANFAC from 1991 to 1996 and president of the Círculo de Empresarios, an influential business forum, from 1992 to 2000.

He joined the board of Inditex, the owner of Zara, in 1997 and was its non-executive vice chairman from 2005 to 2012. He also chaired González Byass and the mutual insurer Fraternidad-Muprespa, and sat on the boards of Acciona and Schindler.

On 12 July 2012 he was sworn in as the first High Commissioner of the Government for Marca España, appointed by the government of Mariano Rajoy to coordinate public and private efforts to promote Spain's image abroad. He held the post pro bono, with the rank of secretary of state, until 13 October 2018, when the government of Pedro Sánchez replaced the office with a new Secretariat of State for Global Spain.

On 30 March 1970 Espinosa de los Monteros married María Eugenia de Simón y Vallarino. They had five children, Iván, Yago, Beltrán, Eugenia and Silvia, and 19 grandchildren. His son Iván Espinosa de los Monteros became a leading figure in the Vox party, serving as its vice secretary for international relations, and his son Beltrán became a finance director in the Inditex group.

He held the noble title of Marquess of Valtierra from 1985 until his death.

Carlos Espinosa de los Monteros died in Madrid on the morning of Saturday 29 August 2026, aged 82, after a short illness. His death was reported the same evening by Europa Press, El País, El Confidencial, elEconomista and RTVE.

Iberia paid tribute to its former chairman, saying it would never forget his contribution to the history of the airline and sending its condolences to his family and loved ones. Obituaries described him as one of the Spanish executives with the longest careers, and as a key figure in Spanish business.

Espinosa de los Monteros is remembered for turning around Iberia's finances in the early 1980s, for two decades at the head of Mercedes-Benz in Spain, and above all as the first person to lead Marca España, the national effort to improve Spain's reputation abroad. His career, alternating between senior public office and the boardrooms of major companies, made him one of the best connected figures in Spanish business for half a century.