Prize Winners

Madrid, 1970. Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Marketing from Santa Clara University, California. Stanford University Graduate School of Business (USA) and the negotiation course at Harvard Business School. He believes
that the values of an Entrepreneur include, amongst others, perseverance, risk-taking, sacrifice, hard work and generosity. Perseverance, because entrepreneurship is not easy and, although there are many joys, there will be difficult moments. Risk-taking, as entrepreneurs are often forced to make decisions without all the information and in situations of some ambiguity. A capacity for sacrifice and hard work, because without a culture of hard work and personal sacrifice it is very difficult to be an entrepreneur, especially in the early stages of any project. Generosity, because in his view one must be generous towards the people around them: their family, their employees and their customers are the most important part of any business.
In 1993, he began working at ALPS (American Liquid Packaging Systems), a supplier to bottled water companies owned by Saeed Amidi. In 1996, the decision was taken to change the company’s focus and set up its own bottled water distribution companies using the direct-delivery business model with water coolers. In Spain, they reached an agreement with the Cruzcampo Group, which led to his return at the age of 26 to launch the company as chief executive, managing director and a minority partner of Saeed Amidi.
In 1997, commercial operations began in Valencia with an initial team of seven people, and by the end of that year the company had approximately 700 customers and a turnover of 150,000. Today, Aquaservice is the leading water distribution company specialising in water coolers, with 150,000 customers, 700 direct employees and a turnover of 48.5 million euros in 2015.      
In 2012, together with his partner Saeed Amidi, he co-founded Plug and Play Spain, one of the first start-up accelerators, and he is actively involved in helping Spanish entrepreneurs to make their projects a success. He is also a member of the Amidi family’s Advisory Council Board and, specifically, of the Plug and Play Tech Centre accelerator in Silicon Valley and of Chemtex International. Furthermore, together with Saeed Amidi, he co-founded two further projects in Spain: AJAS Real Estate Investments and Chemtex Europa, in which he also serves as chief executive.
He believes that, in a way, he is living part of his dream but, at the same time, he is ambitious and is not content with what he has achieved. From a business perspective, he envisages Aquaservice as a much larger organisation than it is today – a benchmark in management and a clear success story for prestigious universities such as Harvard Business School.

The jury for the Rei Jaume I Entrepreneur Prize, meeting in Valencia, has unanimously decided to award the 2016 prize to Alberto Gutiérrez Garrido for his ability to generate employment, innovation and wealth through a basic commodity such as drinking water. Furthermore, he actively contributes to strengthening the entrepreneurial spirit through the Plug & Play accelerator, having become a role model and point of reference within the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Click on the last image to watch his full interview