Company: BCDRF
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000891478-25-000054
Chunk: 235

Company: Banco Santander, S.A.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 20-F
Chunk 235
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 in May and EUR 10.00 cents per share in November), which is a 39% increase on the cash dividend paid out in 2023. Moreover, we also paid out approximately EUR 3,000 million through share buyback programmes.                                                                     |

Annual report 2024 239

| Contents |     | Business model and strategy |     | Sustainability statement |     | Corporate governance |     | Economic and financial review |     | Riskmanagement and compliance |

| 2024 priorities                                                                                                                                                                   |     | How we delivered                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              |
| Governance effectiveness                                                                                                                                                          |     |                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               |
| To remain focused on the overall effectiveness and composition of the board and its committees, ensuring that their role is discharged in the most tangible and effective manner. |     | In 2024, we continued to refresh the board of directors ensuring diversity in its broadest sense (gender, backgrounds, geographical provenance, new skills and experience) to ensure that we are well placed to address the challenges faced in our business and taking into account feedback from previous board effectiveness reviews.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
 The board holistically analysed committee composition and agreed on specific changes, partly driven by the departures of Bruce Carnegie-Brown and Ramiro Mato from the board, and the need to rotate off the audit committee chair in line with applicable provisions. The agreed changes took into consideration best practice committee composition disciplines, regulatory guidance, appropriate workload distribution amongst members and optimised mix of skills and experience on each committee, among other factors. See'Changes to the committees'in section 1.1.    
 In 2024, the nomination committee monitored execution of the action plan derived from the 2023 board effectiveness review, which was conducted with the collaboration of an external independent firm, which was successfully completed in June 2024. In addition, the board conducted its annual effectiveness review in 2024 internally. The findings of the review concluded that the board and its committees continue to operate effectively and that the board's contribution is highly valuable for management. See'Board effectiveness review in 2024'in section 4.3. |

#### 1.6 Priorities for 2025
The board set the following priorities for 2025:

→ Transformation

We will oversee the implementation of our operating model, ensuring that we operate as a truly global-local organization with five global businesses, simplifying processes, reducing costs and improving customer experience by further optimizing our product portfolio.

→ People

We will remain focused on attracting and retaining the