Spain's Unicaja Banco announced on Friday the appointment of José Sevilla as non-executive chairman to replace Manuel Azuaga, while completing the renewal of its corporate governance structure.

Sevilla was CEO of Bankia for nearly seven years before Caixabank completed its acquisition of the former state-owned entity in March 2021.

His appointment is subject to shareholder approval.

Unicaja had already announced that Azuaga would step down once the new chairman was appointed. He had remained in the position for a two-year transitional period after completing the acquisition of its smaller competitor, Liberbank.

In July, Unicaja appointed Isidro Rubiales as the new CEO to replace Manuel Menéndez, and the European Central Bank authorized the appointment in September.

Supervisors of euro zone banks are in favor of separating the roles of chairman and CEO. In many Spanish banks, the president has executive powers and controls strategy, while the CEO is in charge of day-to-day business.

Corporate governance has been at the center of the banking turmoil triggered in March by the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in the United States and the state-backed takeover of Credit Suisse in Switzerland by UBS Group.

(Report by Jesús Aguado; edited in Spanish by José Muñoz)