From telecommunications to water: Roberto Muñoz's new mission

For 25 years, Roberto Muñoz was synonymous with Telefónica. Former colleagues recall that in private, jokes were made about the industrial civil engineer's ability to stay in such a fast-paced industry, where few executives managed to remain there for so long. It was a quarter of a century in which the business leaped from telephony to technology. A change as big and unexpected as his arrival at the head of Southwater, the Canadian-origin conglomerate that controls the water utilities Essbio, Esval, Nuevosur and Aguas del Valle. On October 5, when the board of Southwater, whose controlling shareholder is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, announced the creation of the position of general manager, with the hiring of Muñoz Laporte (55), the chairman of the company, Jorge Lesser, offered some clues about the appointment: "The board values the professionalism and commitment of all the (group's) companies and their work teams, who make it possible to deliver a high-quality service, even in highly demanding scenarios. However, the challenges facing our sector force us to raise our standards even further to meet the expectations of our clients, communities, authorities and shareholders." The group's water utilities have their own administrations, and the holding's investments were managed through AndesCan, the controlling and managing company of Southwater, which until now had no employees, according to its 2025 annual report. Its subsidiaries did, however, employing a total of 2,145 employees as of December 2025. Now Southwater has a general manager, who was recruited on the recommendation of a head hunter, reveals someone familiar with the process. The company that Muñoz will manage defines its mission this way in its annual report: "Southwater plays an articulating and strategic support role. Our task is to accompany the subsidiaries, strengthen their capabilities and ensure that decisions are made with a long-term view, based on technical, financial and sustainability criteria." In the regions, they were awaiting the new boss with interest, especially when it became known that one of his first activities would be to tour the facilities and meet the local teams. He dedicated his first week to that. People close to the executive explain that he considered it fundamental to do that before building "together" —as he emphasized in several meetings— "everything that lies ahead." Expectations Expectations are high for the new chief of the water utilities that concentrate more than 36% of the sector's customers in Chile and operate in the regions of Coquimbo, Valparaíso, Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins, Maule, Ñuble and Biobío, especially given the moment the sector is going through. Climate change could force new and significant investments; there is the possibility that the State will sell the stakes of nearly 5% that Corfo retains in some companies such as Essbio, Esval, Aguas Andinas and Suralis, as the dual Economy and Mining Minister, Daniel Mas, announced in August. Added to this are the tariff-setting processes, which resulted in increases in water bills. The market expects a Muñoz who is a protagonist in the public debate and with an internal focus marked by the digitalization of the business. Roberto Andrés Muñoz Laporte is the youngest of three siblings. He was born and raised in Viña del Mar, where he studied at The Mackay School and later at the University of Chile, earning a degree in industrial civil engineering, from which he graduated in 1997. In 2015, the faculty's internal magazine interviewed him as a distinguished alumnus. He had been at Telefónica for 14 years and was its CEO. There, he projected that linear television consumption would become obsolete in the face of video on demand in multi-screen applications, and that the survival of the telecommunications model would depend on accelerated investment in hardware and networks to support the massification of sensors in mining and agriculture. There he also anticipated citizen and municipal opposition to the installation of antennas. He joined Telefónica in 2001 in the marketing area of the mobile subsidiary, and after four years he went to study finance at UC Berkeley in the United States. Back in Chile, he worked in strategy and sales areas before taking on the role of Director of Innovation and Business Development for Latin America, based in Madrid. He was involved in the integration of Telefónica Móviles Chile with BellSouth, an operation that transformed the mobile telephony market in the mid-2000s. Muñoz participated as Integration Director, in charge of coordinating teams and businesses of the two organizations. In 2008 he was transferred to Spain, and after four years he returned to Chile as corporate general manager in February 2012. In 2018 he added the presidency of Telefónica in the country, a position he held until March 2025. His management also faced an increasingly competitive and financially demanding market. Regulated sectors Roberto Muñoz is also a reader of historical novels. A former Telefónica colleague recalls an occasion, during a company forum, when he recommended the book "The Ballerina of Auschwitz" by Edith Eger, but not only for the text, as he explained there, but also for the extraordinary story of resilience and self-improvement of a young woman who was deported at just 16 years old to the Auschwitz concentration camp, lost her parents and survived thanks to her skills as a dancer. Already in her forties, the woman found the strength and determination to reinvent herself, begin studying and build a new stage of her life, eventually becoming a leading figure in post-traumatic stress studies. Edith Eger passed away on April 27 of this year at the age of 98. In the market, they recognize his knowledge of regulated sectors as one of his great assets. "Being in regulated industries also forces you to learn how to converse, something Roberto does very well," summarizes a company director. Those close to him also describe him as a good conversationalist. He often enjoys long after-dinner conversations to "fix the world," and they also describe him as passionate about nature and southern Chile. Together with his family, he especially enjoys outdoor life and spends much of his free time at his house in Frutillar, a place he holds especially dear. He is also a frequent traveler. He has close friends in Madrid and the United States (California and Pennsylvania), places he visits often. Now, after a quarter of a century in telecommunications, Muñoz faces the challenge of transferring that experience to a different industry, but one that is also intensive in infrastructure, regulations and relations with the authorities. His mission will be to articulate the management of four water utilities that until now had operated with their own administrations, in a scenario of greater investment demands and pressure on tariffs. Are you already a subscriber? 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