Sener receives the “Company of the Year 2024” award in Brussels from the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg

The engineering and technology industrial group Sener received the “Company of the Year 2024” award yesterday in Brussels, granted by the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg. The presentation took place during the 10th Edition of the awards and highlighted Sener’s cutting-edge work in the aerospace and defence sector in these countries. In this way, the Chamber once again promotes national economic and business development in Belgium and Luxembourg, rewarding the experience, leadership and competitiveness of Spanish companies.

The event was attended by Mr. Alberto Antón Cortés, Spanish ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium; Pablo López-Álvarez, president of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg; Andrés Sendagorta, president of Sener; Rafael Orbe, general director of Defence at Sener; and Fernando Horcada, Director of EU and NATO Programmes and of the Aerospace and Defence Representation Office of Sener in Brussels, together with more than a hundred authorities from European institutions and the community innovation ecosystem.

The Spanish ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium, Mr. Alberto Antón Cortés, highlighted in his speech that “it is an honour to present this award to Sener and to celebrate the recognition of its experience, leadership, and contribution to the Spanish economic and business development in Belgium and Luxembourg. Its trajectory has not only driven its success, but has also strengthened the global position of our industry and has contributed to giving international visibility to the Spanish brand in innovative and strategic sectors.”

In the words of Pablo López-Álvarez, President of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg, “it is particularly satisfying to present our award to this exemplary company, which was founded almost 70 years ago as a marine technical office, being the first Spanish engineering company registered as such.”

For his part, Andrés Sendagorta, President of Sener, said: “We are grateful to the Chamber for this award, as well as to all the Spanish authorities in Brussels who have facilitated our local establishment. We will continue working to be a reference in Europe and we expect our representative office in Brussels to grow progressively, strengthening our collaboration with the industry in Belgium and Luxembourg.”

Sener, founded in 1956 as the first Spanish engineering company registered in Spain, today has approximately 4,000 professionals on five continents, offices in 18 countries and production centres for the aerospace and defence market in Spain and Poland. In addition to these markets, Sener has a recognised track record in energy, data centres, infrastructure and mobility.

Since the opening of its office in Brussels in 2019, Sener has actively collaborated with around 30 Belgian companies on 18 European defence projects and 12 European space projects. As an example of these collaborations, Sener led the consortium that won the HYDEF project, co-financed by the EU and led by Spain (today, under the coordination of SMS) for the development of a hypersonic missile interceptor system, in which the Belgian company SONACA participates as a relevant partner. In addition, Sener also leads COMMANDS, for the development of technology that facilitates intelligent cooperation between manned and unmanned military ground vehicles, which is also co-financed by the EU.

In addition to these collaborations, Sener leads the Proba-3 mission of the European Space Agency (ESA). It is one of the first ESA missions led by Spain and will achieve, in addition to generating valuable scientific knowledge about the solar corona, an unprecedented technological milestone, as it will demonstrate that formation flight between satellites is possible. Belgian companies, especially SPACEBEL and Redwire, have an important participation in this mission; The latter has collaborated in the integration of the satellites at its facilities in Kruibeke, near Antwerp.

In collaboration with the Luxembourg industry, Sener is leading a multinational very low orbit satellite project, coordinated by the European Defence Agency (EDA) and called VLEO. Among others, the Luxembourg companies SPARK.