Independent thinker Antonio Brufau has taken a rather unusual route to the helm of a leading oil company. Repsol’s CEO started as a partner at Arthur Anderson and spent five years with La Caixa group before taking the leap to join the oil conglomerate in 2004. Brufau remains an admired businessman who turned the company around through a clever restructuring programme which initially reduced its exposure to South America. The Spaniard, who holds an economics degree from the University of Barcelona, has been making the news recently with several high-profile expansion plans, predominantly in Bolivia’s Margarita Project.