Aspen España Fellows
Our Fellows share their experiences in Aspen.
What is Aspen Institute España for you?
Aspen España Fellows
Aspen Institute España selects each year from its network of Alumni those who have excelled during their participation at the seminars to become candidates for the Aspen España Fellows Program.
The Aspen Institute Alumni Network is an engaged community of people actively participating in our educational and policy studies events, providing important input for our activities, and helping sustain our mission to foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues.
The creation of the Aspen Institute España Fellows Program joins the network of committed Aspen alumni with the mission of Aspen in Spain and offers its members the opportunity to join the international Network of Aspen. Aspen Fellows may be trained to become moderators of Aspen seminars and have access to other programs and seminars of The Aspen Institute. Thus, their role as representatives and ambassadors of Aspen España is encouraged.
Xavier Coll
Deputy Managing Director, CaixaBank
Beyond its value as a leading edge institution in fostering ideas, dialogue and progress and consolidation of democracy, Aspen offers a space to grow personally and professionally. In the spring of 1998, I took part in my first Seminar. Despite the fact that I started the Seminar with the scepticism of a young energetic and ambitious professional, those four days transformed me. The Seminar helped me to order my thoughts, values and goals, to start a long and always unfinished path of self-knowledge and to enhance my role as a leader and a human. Since that moment, Aspen became a magnificent travelling companion –always intelligent, challenger, innovative, open to dialogue and gentle.
Marta Colomina
Director General, Fundación PwC
In a world where the urgent, the short term, the objectives and the results set the agendas, it becomes necessary to stop, talk, listen, learn, prosper, reflect. This is what Aspen España is for me. An oasis where to receive, from the classic and contemporary texts and from the other participants, new visions and approaches. Aspen España is already a necessity to find myself again, search in the essence and enrich myself to be able to contribute in the search for a more just, equitable and exciting society.
Cristina Crespo
Director of the Cabinet of the Rector of the University of Alcalá
The Aspen experience brings you closer to dialogue and reflection with people from different backgrounds. It is a privilege to be able to escape the daily routine to focus on the study of the classics and the search for tools to continue this experience over time. It is a turning point in the debate of ideas and how to approach the future.
Domingos Cruz
Partner, CCA Law Firm
Aspen is the one place where I can experience a meaningful conversation, unbiased, with very powerful insights. The most amazing effect, what I call the Aspen tail, is the long lasting effect it produces in your inner self. After you complete a seminar, or any given program, in the following weeks or months, during your professional or personal life small homeopathic doses of Aspen are released and clearly have an impact in your relationships and decisions. Another singular effect that Aspen causes, is a profound sense of humbleness, the level of knowledge and authority of our peers is insurmountable and simultaneously challenging, bringing the best there is in you. I cherish every moment I have and will have in Aspen, anywhere in the world.
Albert Dalmau
City Manager, Ajuntament de Barcelona
The key to success is to have one foot in strategy and the other in operations, but management, the harsh reality, often leaves us little room to think. Quiet and trusting spaces, such as ASPEN, enrich the capacity for reflection and provide a humanistic vision. Dedicating time to this allows us to guide the direction of our actions and reduce risks.
At the same time it is an intellectual stimulus, an excellent opportunity to learn and share opinions in a plural and representative forum, to promote new leadership based on values and to debate on the global challenges of humanity. Participating is a real pleasure for personal and professional growth.
At the same time it is an intellectual stimulus, an excellent opportunity to learn and share opinions in a plural and representative forum, to promote new leadership based on values and to debate on the global challenges of humanity. Participating is a real pleasure for personal and professional growth.
Antonio Delgado
Secretary General of ESADE
Aspen is an awareness of the need to defend democratic principles and fight against toxic leadership. It is a call for transformative leadership that puts the common good before personal interests. It is a place to stop and reflect, to dialogue with respect and to learn. It is an awakening from the day to day so as not to lose sight of what is really important.
Arancha Díaz-Lladó
Chief Sustainability Officer of Twinco Capital
I had heard great things about Aspen Institute España, but even so, the seminar I attended in Ronda exceeded all my expectations. We live in such a fast-paced world that it is often difficult to find the space and time to reflect on fundamental issues. Aspen Institute España provided me with that space for reflection and allowed me to share it with an extraordinary group of people with whom I could debate and contrast ideas based on serenity, empathy, and attentiveness. I would even say that I came back from Aspen transformed, with a more serene view of the world.
Maysoun Douas
Expert in innovation for impact and governance in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Support Service at UC3M
I appreciate and celebrate the spaces for dialogue where we create social fabric, one that strengthens our democratic bond, experiencing diversity and plurality as reality and the basis of our society. These unique opportunities to step out of our echo chambers remind us that we are not alone and that apparent distance does not imply isolation. But only in this caring space are conversations and reflections that transcend, thereby strengthening our personal, professional and social commitment to conscious progress, giving depth to our values, and turning them into tools to face the challenges of uncertainty and constant change.
Renata Dutra
Senior Manager of Institutional Relations at Telefónica S.A.
Pablo Echenique Conde
PARTNER AT DLA PIPER
Aspen España is the "shining city on a hill". The place where different people meet to discuss issues that have occupied humanity from 2,000 years ago to the present day, around carefully selected humanistic texts. The institution is heir to the best tradition of the salons of enlightened Europe. In this increasingly complex and turbulent world, faced with a worrisome crisis of liberal democracies and open societies, Aspen España aims to be a critical but calm forum that helps leaders, personalities and prominent professionals to “improve the questions” in order to contribute to improve the quality of public debate in Spain and strengthen our system of freedoms and our institutions.
José Luis Escario
Research Associate, Area of Studies and Analysis of Fundación Carolina
What I consider the most remarkable issue about Aspen España is how, from the reading and reflection of the selected readings, one is involved in dialogues about existential and social concerns from a different perspective. Aspen España has allowed me to assertively share my vision (even intimate) on these matters, independent of my professional activity. At the same time, all these years in Aspen España have taught me to communicate to others with respect: in the first place, by listening quietly (internally and externally) and aiming at understanding their position, even if I do not share it. By leaving labels and judgments aside, progressively I have been able to establish a more complete relationship with others and enrich myself with their contributions.
Beatriz Escriña
Global Head of External Communications at Prosegur
Three Wise Men Day. The room full of balloons, packages and a magic that would not be easy to describe with words. You're happy just being there. You take a box. You move it, you shake it. You don't really know what it is, but it makes you smile. By your side someone with eyes wide open feeling the same as you. You both listen. And thousands of questions go through your heads. Some with an answer and others… with more questions.
This is Aspen Institute España to me: a gift.
This is Aspen Institute España to me: a gift.