Olallo Villoldo, winner of the 2026 COIAL Award for Professional Excellence

The Colegio Oficial de Ingenieros Agrónomos de Levante (Levante Association of Agricultural Engineers) recognises the career achievements of the founder and chief executive of Grupotec, as well as his ability to build teams, nurture talent and turn engineering into a shared business venture.

The Levante Association of Agricultural Engineers (COIAL) has awarded Olallo Villoldo, founder and chief executive of Grupotec, the COIAL 2026 Award for Professional Excellence. The award recognises nearly four decades of service and an approach to engineering based on people, trust in teams and a close relationship with clients.

An agricultural engineer from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Olallo Villoldo began his professional career upon completing his studies in 1987. Two years later, he set up a small engineering firm initially focused on the agri-food industry, which later became Grupotec.

One of the aspects particularly valued by the Association is the decision it took in 1997, when that firm already had around twenty professionals: to set up Grupotec and bring its first senior managers on board as shareholders. In this way, it transformed what had initially been a personal project into a shared organisation, distributing responsibilities and creating opportunities for other professionals to develop.

COIAL has also highlighted his ability to anticipate business trends. Under his leadership, Grupotec entered the photovoltaic sector in 2005 and committed to international expansion before the crisis that affected the Spanish market. The company’s entry into the UK market in 2010 proved crucial in consolidating its growth and gradually expanding its activities into areas such as energy storage, water, bioenergy, environmental engineering, construction, architecture and real estate, and data centres.

Since those early projects, Grupotec has grown to become a multidisciplinary group comprising more than 700 professionals, with projects carried out across four continents. Throughout this evolution, Olallo Villoldo has kept project engineering at the heart of the company and has ensured that the professionals leading each project have access to the best technical resources and the full support of the organisation.

The award also recognises Olallo Villoldo’s contribution to the training and development of several generations of engineers. Grupotec has served as a training ground and professional platform for many people who have subsequently taken on managerial roles or launched their own projects.

The 2026 COIAL Award thus recognises a career marked by business acumen, technical expertise and personal integrity, which has contributed to the prestige of agricultural engineering and demonstrated the discipline’s ability to tackle increasingly diverse and complex projects, markets and challenges.