As CEO of Granada FC, Patricia Rodríguez is one of the most powerful and prominent women in football.
Patricia has extensive club management experience and was one of the first women in management of a top tier football club during her time at Eibar. She went on to become the director of the club, and from there joined Eiche, before reaching Granada. As well as being a member of the World Football Summit Advisory Board, Patricia also works on training programmes across several higher education bodies. On top of all this, she is on the Committee of Experts of the Spanish Marketing Association.
Her entry into the world of football came about unexpectedly, when she was working at PwC. A colleague sent her information about a job opening as financial director at SD Eiber – at that point recently promoted to first division.
Although Patricia hadn’t been looking to leave her role at PwC right away, she had planned to move on at some point in the future, but had yet to decide what she wanted to do next.
The role at SD Eiber promised everything she had been looking for: travel, building new relationships, and ultimately a change from the stability and predictability of the work she was doing at that point. Patricia thought her chances of being offered the role may be slim due to her being a woman and from an unrelated professional background, she was successful in being chosen for the job.
It was a chance application which ultimately changed the course of her life and has inspired more women into the game.
The multi-talented CEO told Show Racism The Red Card that she was initially attracted to the football industry by its variety of day-to-day work, and the distinctiveness of each club, citing the fresh new challenges that make the job so satisfying.