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.
Álvaro Imbernón
Director, Strategy and Foresight Unit, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, EU and Cooperation
He is a political scientist specialized in European affairs and International Relations currently working at the Secretariat of State for the EU. He also teaches European integration and international political economy at Nebrija University and other educational institutions. He has recently served as an advisor on international and economic affairs at the Vice-Presidency of the Spanish Government and as a researcher on political risk and foresight at ESADEgeo. In the past, he has worked as a consultant in Belgium, Myanmar, and Japan and has collaborated with the United Nations University and pan-European think tanks such as the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and FEPS.
José Ramón Iturriaga
Partner at Abante Asesores
How can it be that the shared review of more or less classic but current readings can provide so much enjoyment?
That is Aspen España to me. Huge enjoyment.
Come away with more questions than answers. A gift in the shape of time for oneself from which if not wiser, you do come out more open-minded.
And this, in these times, is tremendously valuable.
That is Aspen España to me. Huge enjoyment.
Come away with more questions than answers. A gift in the shape of time for oneself from which if not wiser, you do come out more open-minded.
And this, in these times, is tremendously valuable.
Isabelle Le Galo Flores
Deputy Director for Spain, Fundación Daniel & Nina Carasso
For me, Aspen España is a place to imagine together and think without borders. There are few places with these characteristics and there has not been such an urgent moment to have them and take care of them. Through dialogue between our very diverse ways of understanding and feeling, we build together another vision of the world, richer and more common. It is a profound experience that transcends the cognitive biases of our individualities and that gives life to a germ of real cooperation between different people, entities and ideologies. And those are for me two masterpieces for solving the social and environmental challenges that our world faces today.
Ricardo López-Aranda
diplomat and current Spanish ambassador to Ukraine
Coexistence in democracy is based on dialogue. The deeper the dialogue, the richer the democracy and the more solid the coexistence. Aspen Institute España is for me that space for profound dialogue which is often lacking in Spanish society. A sort of island that, conversation by conversation, seminar by seminar, is becoming an archipelago of exchanges, with the vocation perhaps of being the seed of a continent of mutual respect.
Fiona Maharg-Bravo
Director, Brunswick Group
Aspen España is a rare forum that gathers open-minded people in various fields to discuss complex problems. These interactions challenge you to think differently with professionals that you might not ordinarily cross paths with. It’s a gift in an increasingly polarised society.
Guillermo Mariscal Anaya
Member of the Spanish Parliament (Popular Party)
Marta Martín Llaguno
Professor of Communication and Advertising at the University of Alicante
Aspen is a communication space in the truest sense of the term. A forum to share visions of the world and life. A pause in the "noise" of the information society for thinking, debating and learning from readings and from others. A space to study the past and analyze the present with the aim that dialogue and reason will leave as a legacy a good future based on democratic values.
Valentina Martínez Ferro
Member of the Spanish Parliament (Popular Party)
For me, Aspen is an exercise of boldness because nothing that is done in it is “in style” nowadays. It is a place where one can reflect out loud without being afraid of being right and, above all, of being mistaken. Where there is time to listen, and to talk over the 144 characters . It is a space to be challenged intellectually and respected personally. A space to meet people from different fields with the common interest to build and work towards having a better country. A great exercise of boldness of which I feel very proud to be part of.
Rocío Martínez-Sampere
Director of the Fundación Felipe González
Aspen España is a gift. A place where I learn to reflect and to dialogue. I leave the Aspen España seminars with more doubts and more contradictions than I came with. With friends who would not have been in any other circumstance. Aspen España means to me, the ‘opposite of wasting time’. It is, as I have said, a gift that has changed my way of facing the collective challenges we confront as a society.
Santiago Martínez-Lage Sobredo
State Attorney (leave of absence)
Yolanda Mayordomo
Manager International Relations, Iberdrola
Being part of Aspen Institute España is a challenge, the challenge of understanding, listening, giving an opinion and above all a challenge of reflection. Aspen España is to me a multidisciplinary intellectual space in which to debate with serenity about controversial concerns, which lend themselves to sometimes contradictory interpretations, defended with solid arguments by people with an enormous capacity for analysis. The Seminar at Ronda was my first Aspen challenge. I recommend it whenever I can, especially in the corporate arena where I work, because transatlantic values should also guide business decisions.
Áurea Moltó
Director Política Exterior
Pause, listening and motivation are my findings in Aspen España. They are in the readings, the dialogues and the people who participate in the meetings designed to break prejudice to discover what is common: our doubts. Aspen España provides a calm and trusting environment to ask yourself questions and seek answers. In short, to accept the complexity of the human, our imperfection and the need for personal bond.