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.
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)
Gilbert Mateu
Public Affairs Director
In an increasingly polarized world, it is comforting to find a haven of peace where one can think, express opinions, exchange, debate, with great freedom, knowing that one will be heard, responded to, sometimes questioned, but with the peace of mind that this debate is meant to be open, constructive and in any case with the search for the common good in mind. For me, Aspen goes beyond pure debate, it is a call to action to actively participate in public life in a spirit of collaboration, respect and commitment to the values that unite us as a community.
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.
Juan Moscoso del Prado
Director, International Relations department, CES, Director of PLPE, Deusto Business School
While the enlightened institutions that took us centuries to build tumble, to me, Aspen España has become the main space not only for humanistic and rational dialogue, but even for civic and democratic proselytism. A space that has also the vocation of channel and today, once again essential, of bridge. In Aspen España we reflect together; people who will never vote the same exchange texts and ideas, recommend books, learn, introduce ourselves by telling what animal we would like to be, a kingfisher, for example, and we also love each other. Everyone does it in their own way, we share a philosophy and goals, to improve our world from knowledge, science, technology, culture, and we do it in the style of the old Socratics of ancient Greece or Rome to whom everything we owe.
Arminio Muñoz Bravo
director of Public Policy to España and Portugal de Mastercard
Aspen was a real discovery for me, or rather, a rediscovery. It allowed me to recover classic authors with a new perspective and also to enjoy the calm debate, the deep conversation, in an environment as favourable as the Real Maestranza de Ronda. The Aspen seminars have been an opportunity for me to unlearn habits and customs acquired in a world where the culture of immediacy prevails and also enabled me to listen and recognize the virtues of other’s views. The experience was totally gratifying and meant a change in my way of dealing with relationships, both personal and professional, apart from an excellent opportunity to meet interesting people who have become a reference model.