Plenergy appointed Álvaro Granada as chief executive officer, effective October 1, succeeding founder José Rodríguez de Arellano, as Expansión and Europa Press report. Rodríguez de Arellano is stepping away after leading the business for a decade but will remain on its board.
A founder stays close to the company
Granada arrives with a background that combines fuel retail in Europe and Latin America. Europa Press reports that he has led Grupo Primax since 2020, after 14 years at BP. His BP responsibilities included the retail business in Iberia and the company’s entry into Mexico between 2016 and 2020. Expansión describes him as a leader with more than two decades of international experience, including time at BP and Primax.
Rodríguez de Arellano founded Plenergy, previously known as Plenoil, and led the company from its first service station in 2015. In the statement reported by Europa Press, he said that after ten years of management, he and the company’s governing body had decided it was time to make the change. He will continue as a board member, preserving a formal link with a business he built while giving Granada the day-to-day chief executive role.
The board’s message places the transition inside the company’s next stage of growth. Chair Doug Dossey said leadership means looking ahead and planning carefully for those next phases; he described Granada’s experience and vision as a fit for advancing the company without losing its existing principles. Those are the board’s stated reasons, not a forecast of a particular expansion plan.
The first day in the new role is set: October 1. Granada’s earlier BP experience in Iberia and Mexico is a notable part of the profile because it gives him a regional operating background before taking over a business based in Spain and Portugal. Plenergy’s announcement does not provide additional organizational changes or a separate handover timetable beyond Rodríguez de Arellano’s continued board role.
The transition adds another leadership example in energy-related businesses. Readers can compare it with EOG’s recent CFO appointment, which moved a finance executive into the top financial role rather than shifting a founder-led CEO seat.
