Albert Cuatrecasas, Engineer of the Year 2022 by the COIT and the AEIT

The Official College of Telecommunications Engineers (COIT) and the Spanish Association of Telecommunications Engineers (AEIT) has awarded the 2022 Engineer of the Year Award, which pays tribute to professionals who celebrate 50 years of profession, to Albert Cuatrecasas.

“If I am born again, I will study telecommunications again.” These were some of Albert Cuatrecasas' first words when his election as Engineer of the Year 2022 was announced during the celebration of San Gabriel. The long and intense career of Cuatrecasas has earned it this award that rewards a lifetime dedicated to Telecommunications. Since his beginnings as a student at the ESITB of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, he combined his studies with working as a computer scientist for the Personnel Department of the University of Barcelona.

Recently graduated, he joined the Organizing Committee of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games as head of sound at the Real Club de Polo de Barcelona Olympic equestrian venue. “From the Olympics I take with me the passion of all the collaborators and volunteers, the drive and enthusiasm for a project, and this is how I have tried to apply it from now on in my professional life, very important!”, Cuatrecasas declares about this episode in his professional career.

Later he joined the International Commercial Management of Abengoa-Sainco Tráfico, an entity from which he “sold Spanish technology to China, something difficult to imagine today,” in his words. In that company he trained and worked very intensely: “Honestly, it was a personal experience of which I am very proud and happy.”

With the explosion of the '.com' he entered the Cluster Competitiveness Consulting. Shortly after, he would begin the journey whose journey still continues today, as he was part of the team that studied investments in Telecommunications infrastructure at ACESA Telecom.

In the current Cellnex Telecom, Cuatrecasas has held various important positions during these 22 years. From head of Institutional Relations in the beginning to general director of Cellnex Spain today, having previously held the positions of deputy director of Territorial Business and director of Global Business.

Cuatrecasas is at the head of an infrastructure operator with more than 137,000 towers in 12 European countries, a success achieved thanks to “anticipation through the neutral operator model, attention to both organic business and inorganic opportunities, taking care of customer service and, above all, maintaining the enthusiasm as the first day”, as he himself relates.

During his acceptance speech, Cuatrecasas indicated that in nature there are four forces: gravitation, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear force. “And we are one of these four forces, providing its practical application to society, an increasingly better and more connected society,” he added.

In the last two editions of this award, which has been awarded since 1999, Roberto Sánchez, Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures (2021), and Félix Pérez, director of the Higher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineers of Madrid (ETSIT) of the UPM (2020), were recognized.