Fernando Salazar
Chief of International Business
Fernando Salazar Palma, civil servant by competitive examination in the Senior Corps of Commercial Experts and Economists of Spain, has a distinguished career in the field of international finance, particularly in the area of public financing of business internationalisation.
Much of his working career has been spent abroad. Mr. Salazar has been Chief Counsellor in the Economic and Commercial Offices of the Spanish Embassies in China and Brazil, as well as consultant at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). In Spain, he was Executive Vice President of ICEX, as well as Executive Chairman of the Cesce Group for six years. In addition, he has contributed to the development of the ICO Foundation, acting as director from September 2024 to January 2025. He has been Director General of International Corporate Finance, Mediation and State Funds at Instituto de Crédito Oficial from January 2025 to February 2026.
As Chief of International Business, he is responsible for defining and driving ICO's international strategy, setting geographical and sectoral priorities and ensuring coherence with institutional and public policy objectives. He runs the origination and structuring of international direct financing operations, managing the relationship with clients, financial institutions, multilateral organisations and European institutions. He supervises the comprehensive processing of operations, ensuring the quality and traceability of files and the correct coordination with the Risk Management and Internal Audit Departments in accordance with the three-lines-of-defence model. He also promotes and coordinates ICO's activity as the State Financial Agency, leads the management of the ICO International Channel facility and the Institute's participation as an InvestEU implementing partner.
He also represents ICO in international forums of national promotional banks, leads the deployment of the International Expansion Department and the development of a overseas network, and maintains a high-level institutional agenda to strengthen the Institute's international profile and presence. In addition, he coordinates the formalisation of international transactions, fosters the comprehensive digitalisation of the transaction cycle, defines and reports activity indicators, and develops the capabilities of the team under his purview, with cross-departmental coordination.
The International Expansion Division, the International Financing Department and the State Funds Department report to this Directorate General.