About us

Alejandro Menéndez Moreno has a degree and a PhD in Law from the Universidad de Valladolid and received the Extraordinary Doctoral Award for the two-year period from 1980-81. Professor of Financial and Tax Law at the Universidad de Valladolid, he was Dean of the same institution's Law School from 1995 to 1998. He has also been a member of the Economic and Social Council of Castilla y León, Spain; Co-Editor of the Quincena Fiscal magazine; and an advisor to a range of Spanish and international magazines and journals. Professor Menéndez has represented his alma mater at SEAST in Bologna and is Vice Chair of the Royal Academy for Legislation and Jurisprudence of Valladolid.

Professor Menéndez has published a range of treatise on Spanish Finance and Tax Law and budgetary regulation. He leads research programmes into "The concept and categories of public revenues"; "Tax as a tool for environmental protection"; "Funding Spain's Autonomous Regions"; "The elements that make up the tax structure"; "Tax on image rights"; "Describing sources of income in Personal Income Tax"; and "The impact of EU legislation and jurisprudence on the structure of Spanish tax law".

Jesús Sánchez Lambás was awarded a degree from the Department of Law in Valladolid, Spain in 1978, and remained at the university as a lecturer in Civil Law and as a Professor at Vigo University School of Business Studies until 1992. Mr Sánchez Lambás is the founding secretary of the Santiago Alba Association and has been a member of the Valladolid Royal Academy of Legislation and Jurisprudence since 1986, as a member of the Civil and Commercial Law Committee. He has been a practicing lawyer since 1980 and is a member of the Bar Associations of Valladolid, Madrid, Alcalá de Henares, Álava and Santander. He has also been a member of the Spanish Association of Corporate Counsel (AAE) from when it was first founded in Spain. Mr Sánchez Lambás continued his teaching career at the Instituto Universitario de Investigación Ortega y Gasset (IUIOG), which is attached to Universidad Complutense de Madrid, undertaking teaching, research and publication in the field of legal sciences. Mr Sánchez Lambás also leads a Master’s programme in Insolvency Law and corporate crises. He was the Director and General Secretary of Fundación José Ortega y Gasset, which included the IUIOG and international relations centre CERI, created under the patronage of the Spanish Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence.

Mr Sánchez Lambás is also a legal adviser in charge of the Group of Companies belonging to the General Directorate for State Assets, which reports to the Ministry of the Economy. Mr Sánchez Lambás has been a member of the Executive Committee of Transparency International since it was founded. He is also General Secretary of the Board of Directors of Volvo Car Spain, President of the Valencia Regional Government’s foundation representing Alicante’s role as start port for the Volvo Ocean Race, CEO of digital newspaper El Imparcial, a trustee of the historic Santa Cruz university college in Valladolid, and a trustee and second vice president of the Fundación Ortega-Marañón and the IUIOG.

Andreu Cruañas Acosta is currently President of ASEMPLEO, which is the association of private employment agencies representing private employment management companies that are part of the European EUROCIETT network and the global CIETT network. He is also a member of the Executive Committee and the national Board of Directors of the Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Associations, the CEOE. Mr Cruañas is a member of the Board of Directors of CEPYME (confederation of small and medium-sized business associations), a member of the National Employment System’s Central National Council (which reports to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security), a member of the Central Executive Committee for the state employment service SEPE and a member of the Advisory Board at Cuatrecasas Institute for Legal Strategy on Human Resources. Mr Cruañas is a founding partner and former director of CRUAÑAS & ASOCIADOS, CONSEJEROS, S.L., which is a consultancy firm providing sector-based positioning, strategy, guidance and institutional communication services focusing on sustainability, human capital, employment policies and corporate social responsibility, with offices in Barcelona and Madrid and representation in Brussels. He is also Vice President of IPS (Institute for Sustainable Production). Mr Cruañas was previously a partner and director at ALARIS ESTRATEGIA DE LAS ORGANIZACIONES, S.L., which is a company focusing on corporate social responsibility and designing employment policies, with a special emphasis on labour integration. He was Secretary of Labour and Employment Affairs and Director General of Labour for the Catalan Regional Government, while also working as Director General of the public employment service SOC. Andreu Cruañas has a Law degree from UB in Barcelona, he is a graduate in Business Management from IESE Business School and completed the Managerial Functions in Public and Private Organisations programme at ESADE Business School.

Enrique Bacigalupo is a Professor of Criminal Law and a former Judge of the Spanish Supreme Court. He leads the Criminal Law seminar at the Instituto Universitario de Investigación Ortega y Gasset (IUIOG). Professor Bacigalupo has a degree and a PhD in Law and Social Sciences from Universidad de Buenos Aires, a PhD from Universidad Complutense de Madrid and an honorary doctorate from various Latin American universities. He is currently a Full Professor of Criminal Law in the Law Department at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Professor Bacigalupo has been awarded the Constitutional Court Medal “for significant endeavours at the service of the Constitutional Court”. He has also been awarded medals by the Supreme Courts of Argentina and Bolivia, has been an honorary member of the Hispano- German Jurists’ Association since 1983 and was also awarded an Extraordinary Academic Distinction “for being an eminent figure in the field of criminal law” by the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina) in 1993. Professor Bacigalupo has been awarded the title of Grand Official of the Order of Democracy Simón Bolívar (Colombia), a Grand Cross from the Colombian Law Academy and the Grand Cross 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Ismael Crespo Martínez was awarded a PhD in Political Science and Sociology from Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Professor of Political Science at Universidad de Murcia and Director of the university’s Department of Political Sciences and Administration, he is also the Editor of Más Poder Local, a digital magazine about political communication and electoral behaviour focusing on Spain and Latin America. Since 2012, he has been the President of ALICE (Latin American Association of Researchers in Electoral Campaigns). Between 1997 and 1999, Professor Crespo Martínez was Director of Research at the Centre for Sociological Research, which is Spain’s leading polling institute, leading around 200 social and political studies during his time at the centre. Since 1999, he has been leading Spain’s most important electoral campaign research team (GICE), which was responsible for the first panel study involving almost 30,000 interviewees, 20 discussion groups and 6,000 studies of press and TV content. Since 2010, he has been leading the “Leadership and electoral campaigns” and “Ideology and election campaigns” projects. In 2000, Professor Crespo Martínez was appointed Director General of Universities by the Spanish Government and in 2002 he created and led the Spanish Agency for Quality Assessment and University Accreditation (ANECA) until his departure in 2004. In terms of other education-related endeavours, Professor Crespo Martínez coordinated the work of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union (2001-2002) and the Committee of the Common Space of Higher Education of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean (2000-2004). He has worked as a consultant for universities, institutions and regional and national governments in Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, leading the institutional campaign in 2006 for vote promotion in presidential and legislative elections in Peru. Professor Crespo Martínez is currently Co-director of the Murcia region’s public opinion centre, CEMPOMURCIA. He has worked as a member of the teaching staff at FLACSO in Mexico and at public universities in Spain (Navarre and Salamanca), having taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses in more than 65 universities and research centres in Europe and Latin America. He has taken part in almost 30 national and international congresses and has given more than 90 papers in 20 countries. He is the author of more than 100 publications, including books, chapters and articles, and his latest publications include: ¿Compiten las Ideas? La Presencia de la Ideología en las Campañas Electorales Modernas (Valencia: Tirant, 2017), ¿Estamos Preparados? La Gestión de la Comunicación de Crisis en la Administración Pública Española (Madrid: INAP, 2017), Manual de Herramientas para la Investigación de la Opinión Pública (Valencia: Tirant, 2016), Diccionario Enciclopédico de Comunicación Política (Madrid: CEPC, 2016), La Comunicación Interna en la Administración Pública Española (Madrid: INAP, 2015), Partidos, Medios y Electores en Procesos de Cambio (Valencia: Tirant, 2013), Manual de Comunicación Política y Estrategias de Campaña. Candidatos, Medios y Electores en una Nueva Era (Buenos Aires: Biblos, 2011), Metodología de la Ciencia Política (Madrid: CIS, 2009), La Conquista del Poder. Elecciones y Campañas Presidenciales en América Latina (Buenos Aires: La Crujía, 2008) and Elecciones y Sistemas Electorales Presidenciales en América Latina (Mexico: Porrúa, 2008). Professor Crespo Martínez has received different distinctions during his career, including that of Commander with Star of the Civil Order of Alfonso X, the Wise from the Spanish Government, and the degree of Commander of the Order of the Southern Cross, granted by the then President of Brazil, Fernando H. Cardoso. He has also received high-level academic acknowledgements from Lima and César Vallejo universities in Peru, and the Universidad Católica de Córdoba and UNLaR in Argentina. In 2017, Professor Crespo Martínez received the award for “Transferring Knowledge to Society” from the Murcia Regional Government and Universidad de Murcia.

Josefa García Grande has a PhD in Economics and Business and is a Professor in Applied Economics at the Universidad de Alcalá, as well as being the Deputy Director of the Economics Department. Professor García Grande taught Economics at Universidad de Valladolid and International Economy and Foreign Trade at Universidad Carlos III in Madrid. She has also led programmes and research at Universidad Kennedy in Buenos Aires. From 2000 to 2005, Professor García taught Spanish Economics on courses for foreign students at UIMP. She is currently Deputy Director of the Instituto Ortega y Gasset, and previously led the doctoral programme in European Economic and Monetary Integration and the Master's programme in Globalisation and Economic Development.

Josefa García Grande has been the principal researcher (and coordinator) on the following projects: "The Spanish agri-food sector in the context of the European Single Market" funded by CICYT (the Spanish Interministerial Science and Technology Commission); and "Changes in industrial location in an enlarged European Union: the role of technological development policy", funded by IEF.

Professor García Grande has published a range of books and articles on agrarian, European and industrial economics.

She is a member of the Committee looking at the Current Situation and Outlook for the Public Administration, appointed by the Spanish Ministry of Public Administrations; the Chair of the National Examining Board for Inspector/Treasury-level Civil Servants; and a Member of the Examining Board for the Higher Corps of Civil State Administrators.

Carlos Díaz Güell has a PhD in Media and Information Sciences from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and is the editor of Tendencias del Dinero, innovaspain.com and the Innovation in Spain Yearbook.

A member of the founding team at El País, Dr Díaz Güell has considerable experience in the field of journalism, he has carried out several roles in Spain's Public Administration and has extensive experience in consultancy work.

His experience also includes teaching classes in Corporate Concentration at the Media and Information Sciences Faculty at UCM, working as Director of Communication at the Spanish Central Bank, and taking on the roles of Dean at Universidad SEK, Editor of Economia16 newspaper (part of Grupo16) and Director of Institutional Relations at Iberia LAE.

Doctor and Bachelor of Law from the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. Appointed in 1993 as a lawyer at the Constitutional Court, he has also been linked to politics, holding several posts in the PSOE in La Coruña. In 2004 he was appointed Secretary of State for Relations with Parliament by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, as well as Secretary of State for Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs. In 2009 he took up the post of Minister of Justice for two years. During his stay at the head of the Ministry he promoted the reform of the Criminal Code in 2010, which criminalized the criminal liability of the company. He specializes in public law and economic criminal law.

Fernando Jauregui studied Journalism and Law at Universidad de Madrid. He began his extensive career in journalism at the Europa Press agency and has also worked for a range of newspapers in Spain, such as Informaciones, Diario 16, El País, El Periódico and Ya. Mr Jauregui was a correspondent for Agencia EFE at the UN in Geneva and for Pyresa in Lisbon. He has worked with a range of radio and TV broadcasters, including the COPE and RNE radio stations, and is a regular pundit on different talk shows. Mr Jauregui is Editor of the magazine Más-Más and online news portal Diariocrítico.com. He worked as Deputy News Editor for TV channel Telecinco and has also appeared as a contributor on TVE, Canal 9, Telemadrid and other regional channels. Fernando Jauregui is considered one of Spain's leading specialists in political journalism.

Doctor and Degree in Medicine from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). Specialist in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Nutrition. He has been a professor at the Faculty of Medicine of Universidad Complutense and a researcher at the San Carlos University Hospital in Madrid. In his professional career, he has been involved in promoting all kinds of biomedical research initiatives. He has been Founding President of the National Center for Cancer Research Foundation and the National Center for Cardiovascular Research Foundation and for four years he directed the Carlos III Health Institute. He is a member of the Royal Academy of Doctors and Founding Trustee and Director of the GADEA Foundation for Science. An outstanding part of his research and areas of study focus on the impact of obesity and diabetes on the social whole, with special interest in the cardiovascular risks it generates. These activities are focused by the DRECE Institute for Biomedical Studies, which coordinates the research work of more than one hundred scientists in more than fifty health centers throughout Spain.

Eva Valle Maestro has a degree in Economics from the University of Zaragoza. She is currently on a leave of absence from her position as Spanish State Economist and Trade Expert. Ms Valle worked as Director of the Spanish Prime Minister’s Economic Office until 2018 (in the rank of Secretary of State). Her career has focused on economic policy and, for five years, Ms Valle worked in the Executive Director’s Office at the IMF. She has also worked in Spain's General Secretariat of the Treasury and Financial Policy, the Spanish Authority for Markets and Competition (CNMC) and the Spanish Ministry of the Economy’s Directorate General for Economic Policy, thus combining her extensive experience in both economic analysis and industry regulation. Ms Valle currently works at financial consultancy firm QED Economics, of which she is founder.

Has been a judge and public prosecutor. He specialises in urban planning and the real estate market and is both a businessman and a lawyer.

Juan José Abó de Juan has been the only Spanish member of the Académie du vin de France since 1992 and Secretary of the International Academy of Wine since 1973.

Dr Abó de Juan has combined his work as a lawyer with major initiatives in the wine world, where he is considered one of the leading international experts, acting as a wine adviser to Paul Getty, Julio Iglesias and others. He was a founding partner and driving force behind the plan to create the Abadía Retuerta winery in D.O. Ribera del Duero and has achieved considerable prestige as an importer and disseminator of some of the world’s leading wineries in the Spanish market.

Juan José Abó de Juan has a Law degree from UB in Barcelona and PhDs in International Law from the University of Strasbourg and Economics from UCLouvain. He spent some of his career practising Law at the helm of a major Barcelona firm and also worked as Executive Director of the Dexeus and Quiron clinics for more than 10 years. Dr Abó de Juan has also been a member of different Boards at Novartis.

Industrial Engineer by the University of Zaragoza. He has developed his entire professional career in the field of strategic consulting, first at Accenture as a project manager, then at Roland Berger as a partner and finally as a managing partner of Minsait, the digital services subsidiary of Indra. In 2017 he decided, along with other partners, to create his own consulting firm, YGroup Companies, specializing in strategic advice to drive business growth.

Degree in Economics from the Universidad Complutense. He has developedhis entire career in the renewable energy sector, where he is one ofthe national and international references. He is currently the GeneralDirector of the Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF), an association thatgroups together more than 85% of the companies in the sector in Spain.He is also President of the Spanish Photovoltaic R+D Platform(Fotoplat) and a member of the Advisory Council of the ElectricityMarket Organization (OMEL). In the international arena, he is theelected President of the Global Solar Council (GSC), the globalphotovoltaic association, a member of the photovoltaic strategy taskforce of the International Energy Agency (IEA), a member of thestrategy group of the European photovoltaic energy association and ofthe Steering Committee of the European Photovoltaic Technology andInnovation Platform (ETIP PV).

He combines his professional activity with teaching in thepostgraduate course in Wind Energy at the Universidad Politecnica deMadrid. For ten years he was Director of Promotion at Gamesa and forfour years he was President of the Spanish Wind Energy Association(AEE). He has been Director of the International Department of IDAE(Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving) and Spanishrepresentative in the governing committees of the energy programs ofthe European Commission and the International Energy Agency. He hasparticipated in different cooperation and technical assistanceprojects with most of the Latin American, North African countries andUkraine.

PhD in History from the Universidad Complutense. Professor of Information Theory. He is one of the most renowned specialists in Semiotics in the Spanish academic world. Founder and Director of the Group of Studies of Semiotics of Culture of the University Research Institute Jose Ortega y Gasset.

He has been Director of the Academy of Rome and Editorial Secretary of Revista de Occidente. Throughout his academic career he has been at the Sapienza, University of Rome, in its Faculty of Communication Sciences, in the Doctorate in Semiotics at the University of Bologna and at the Siena School of Humanistic Studies.

He is the author of books such as "Persuasion. Strategies of Belief". Bilbao, University of the Basque Country. "The historical discourse". Madrid, Ed. Alianza Universidad. “Análisis del discurso. Hacia una semiótica de la interaccián textual” (with C. Peña-Marín and G.Abril) Madrid, Ed. Cátedra. "Semiotics of Culture. Introduction, Selection and Notes". Madrid, Ed. Cátedra.

PhD in Economics. He currently holds the position of Director of Deusto Business School in Madrid and teaches at the University of Deusto and the International University of La Rioja -UNIR-.

He has lectured at numerous universities and forums in Europe and America.He is a regular contributor to newspapers such as El Mundo, ABC, Expansion and Cinco Dias. His field of research focuses on studies in the field of entrepreneurship and generational diversity.

As a writer, he has published five books "Public Policies for Entrepreneurs". Euroeditions. Madrid 2012; "Millennials, invent your job". UNIR. Madrid 2014; "Disruption". UNIR Editions. Madrid 2017; "Generation Z". Plataforma Editorial. Barcelona 2017; “The grey hair revolution”. Planeta. Barcelona 2018.

He has advised governments and large companies in launching their open innovation programs. In the last five years, he has also pioneered the dissemination of the silver economy among companies and institutions in Spain and Latin America, leading studies and publications on the silver economy or the aging economy.

As a member of an outstanding family of spanish tennis players, he dedicated his early years to this sport, where he was Junior World Champion and won four ATP Tour tournaments; he was a finalist in other tournaments on the professional tennis circuit. Once he retired from sport, he focused his activity on the business world, where he has achieved notable success with the start of the company Greenset, specialising in the manufacture of synthetic coatings for sports. His products are present on the surfaces on which all tennis tournaments are held around the world and in 2016 he achieved maximum notoriety by coating the athletics tracks where the Olympic Games where held in Rio de Janeiro.

He holds a degree in Law from the Universidad Cardenal Herrera CEU in Valencia, an MBA from Deusto University and has completed the Executive Development Programme at the Instituto Empresa. He began his professional career as a lawyer at MA Abogados. Subsequently, he has dedicated his entire professional career to promoting business initiatives in the world of start-ups and innovation. He is a founding partner of Keith Venture Capital, S.L., from where he supports family offices and Angel Funds in the generation of an investment portfolio in start-ups. He is one of the promoters of Atalaya Tech Family Partners, S.L., a technology company for asset management for venture capital and family offices. He is an independent board member of Think Bigger Capital, S.G.E.I.C, S.A.

Graduated in Social Communication from the National University of Cordoba (Argentina) and in Journalism from Antonio de Nebrija University of Madrid. She holds a PhD in Information Society from Universidad Complutense; a European Master in Advanced Communication Studies from University of Murcia and a Master in Political Communication from the Catholic University of Cordoba (Argentina). She has developed part of her professional career in the field of political consulting, leading the design and planning of several electoral campaigns in Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay and Spain. She has also been Director of Communications in public institutions in Argentina and has accumulated significant experience as a communications consultant for companies in the tourism sector. She has participated in the edition of several publications specialized in political communication and has been a professor at the Instituto Universitario de Investigación Ortega y Gasset in Madrid, at the University of Santiago de Compostela and at the National University of Cordoba (Argentina).