Every day at BBVA, more than 136,000 professionals do their best to meet the needs of 67 million customers. Most people only know about the experts in finance, law, personnel and facility management, and technology, but there are many other employees who quietly make important contributions. For instance: Rodolfo Vargas, a waiter at BBVA Bancomer—Mexico, who on many occasions has an impact on customers’ opinion of the bank.

Since 1984, the non-profit organization TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) has disseminated knowledge in an accessible and attractive way for spectators through chats around the planet. TedxMadrid is part of this movement with the sponsorship of Blue BBVA.

As any visitor to my house will be able to tell, I love maps. Our living room is full of them. A Soviet map of Portsmouth (complete with Cyrillic labels) gazes across the room at old maps of South America and Italy. A large Mercator world map occupies an entire wall while Charles Minard's celebrated map of Napoleon's ill-fated Moscow campaign hangs in the hallway.

After its blockbuster success, the Prado Museum has finally closed the exhibition “Bosch. The 5th Centenary Exhibition”, which was exclusively sponsored by the BBVA Foundation. Almost 600,000 people came to see this series of important works by the Renaissance painter, which makes this the most visited exhibition in the gallery’s long tradition.

BBVA Compass added another brush stroke to its big picture commitment to the arts, becoming the lead corporate sponsor of “Degas: A New Vision” at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

The exhibition features more than 200 pieces by celebrated Impressionist Edgar Degas, taken from public and private collections from around the world. It is the most significant international survey of the work of Degas in nearly 30 years, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston is the only U.S. venue to present the exhibition. It opened on Oct. 16.

It's hard to believe, but it’s already been a year since the last time we were here. We arrived at Singapore yesterday, and now we’re gearing up to, hopefully, do things right in the year’s last tournament. It will be extremely hard, because only the season’s 8 best players play in the WTA Finals. As you know, Serena will not be here, but the tournament is going to be just as hard.