Grifols handed its CEO seat to a brother-and-son team in 2017, keeping family control

On 14 December 2015, Grifols' board unanimously approved a succession plan proposed by Víctor Grifols Roura, chairman and CEO since 1987: from 1 January 2017 his brother Raimon Grifols Roura and his son Víctor Grifols Deu would become joint and several chief executives.

The plan made 2016 a transition year, with Víctor Grifols Deu joining the board as executive director at the next shareholder meeting while the father remained chairman and CEO until 31 December 2016, then stayed on as non-executive chairman.

The timing was deliberate: Grifols Roura turned 67 in 2017, the same age at which his own father handed the company to him in 1987 — matching the family's rhythm of generational handovers at the plasma-products leader, founded in 1940.

The company said the handover reiterated the founding family's commitment: although successive capital increases had reduced the family to about 25% ownership, management stayed within the Grifols family while the group grew to a presence in more than 100 countries.

A transparent two-year transition kept family management of a plasma leader in 100+ countries, with 150 US donation centers and €3.35 billion of 2014 revenue.

A named successor team and a published timeline removed uncertainty for investors and employees.

The transition year let the father step back gradually, with both successors learning the joint-CEO model before day one.

Complementary profiles — a lawyer-brother and an operations-trained son — made the co-leadership credible.

The father stayed as non-executive chairman, keeping family stewardship without day-to-day control.

Announce the plan and the timeline years ahead: Grifols won unanimous board approval in 2015, made 2016 a transition year, and the January 2017 handover ran exactly as published.

The joint CEOs led Grifols from January 2017 until May 2023, when the company reorganized leadership — Víctor Grifols Deu moving to chief operating officer and then leaving the executive board in 2024, while the family remained the reference shareholder. The 2015 plan is cited as a model of orderly European family-company succession.