Encarna Piñero, CEO of Grupo Piñero, winner of the Business Lifetime Achievement Award

• The recognition awarded by HIP 2022 highlights the CEO's work in the sector, as well as her support and contribution in positioning Spain as a world tourism power 

• Encarna Piñero: “Grupo Piñero is a family business that, together with my mother and sisters, has four women at the head of the company, so we are undoubtedly a clear example of female leadership.” 

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Encarna Piñero, CEO of Grupo Piñero, received the 2022 Business Lifetime Achievement Award granted by HIP – Horeca Professional Expo on International Women’s Day in an event presided over by Miguel Sanz, general director of Turespaña. Encarna Piñero thanked the distinction by highlighting that, “Grupo Piñero is a family business that, together with my mother and sisters, has four women at the head of the company, so we are undoubtedly a clear example of female leadership.” 

The CEO of Grupo Piñero stressed in her speech that “we women are representing a change in which we have a lot of value to contribute” and explained that “I have been working for 27 years in this company founded by my father, which now has more than 40 years of history, and which I have seen grow to become a leading tourism group.”  

Encarna Piñero concluded by stating that “I am very proud to represent the new project of this legacy, to continue it and make it grow and share it with my family and with the 14,000 people who make up Grupo Piñero, who have made it possible for us to collect awards that recognize responsible and sustainable know-how.”

This award granted by HIP - Horeca Professional Expo recognizes the role played by the CEO in the modernization of the sector, as well as her contribution to the positioning of Spain as a world tourism power.  

In addition to the participation of the general director of Turespaña, the event was attended by the general director of IFEMA, Eduardo López-Puertas; the president of the Madrid Hotel Business Association (AEHM), Gabriel García, and the president of the Spanish Association of Hotel Managers (AEDH), Manuel Vegas. The event was attended by more than two hundred tourism professionals. 

A professional career dedicated to the tourism sector 

Encarna Piñero is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and co-owner of Grupo Piñero, a tourism group founded by her father, Pablo Piñero, in 1977. Over the course of twenty-seven years, she has held various executive positions in the different divisions of the group, where she acquired a global vision of the company.  

During the last five years at the head of the group, she has undertaken important projects like the strategic alliance reached with PGA of America in 2020 and with Logitravel Group, from which Soltour Travel Partners was born, or the recent agreement with BID Invest and Banco Popular Dominicano for the development and growth of tourism in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. 

She has also been involved in other tourism projects beyond the Group's management such as, for example, as a member of the Spanish Tourism Council, part of the Spanish Ministry of Tourism, from 2017 to 2019. 

She is currently president of Inverotel, advisor for the Balearic Islands of the Association for the Advancement of Management (Asociación para el Progreso de la Dirección - APD) and member of the Advisory Board of BBVA, of the Territorial Advisory Board of CaixaBank in the Balearic Islands and of the Board of Directors of the Balearic Association of Family Businesses (ABEF).