Jesus de Polanco died Saturday at the age of 77.
Polanco, the billionaire chairman of the Spanish media conglomerate Grupo PRISA, co-founded El Pais and founded Grupo PRISA, which also owns radio and TV stations and publishing companies.
Grupo PRISA is the largest media company in the Spanish-speaking world.
El Pais, launched in 1976, following Franco’s 1975 death, became Spain’s most-read newspaper as the country returned to democracy.
It remains its top-selling daily.
He was the most powerful newspaper publisher in Spain.
I met him twice in my life:
The first time in Barcelona during an international seminar organized by INNOVATION.
It was in the early 90’s, and he was reluctant to accept that newspapers needed to be full-color products.
The second time in Madrid in his office at the Santillana Foundation near the Ritz hotel.
I went to see him with my friend Jayme Sirotsky, the first Latin American president of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN)
We had a very long conversation.
During these two hours, alone with Mr. Polanco, I found that:
1. He loved books. He was literally surrounded by bookshelfs.
2. He loved Latin America. He knew very well who was who in Latin America.
INNOVATION was the first company hired by PRISA to do editorial consulting for the Group.
