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.
Joanna Raczynska
Consultor at Heidrick & Struggles
Aspen Institute España seeks to promote leadership and constructive dialogue on global challenges that concern us all. By awakening critical thinking, it connects us and sets us on the path to developing innovative and collaborative solutions. Aspen allows us to individually and collectively return to our roots in an environment of trust and shared values.
Isabel Raventós
CEO, Atomis Media
Taking part in Aspen activities is a privilege in these times of immediacy and metaverse. It is an immersive experience in the evaluation and construction of ideas. For me, Aspen is a space of 360º dialogue, where you can interact, reflect, and learn endlessly. It is a plural and deep exchange of views that allows, without noise, to understand, analyze and interpret where we are going. Thus, in this digital era, it is very important to be part of this constant exchange of questions to move forward and continue building.
Valerio Rocco
Director of the Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid
We live in a world that is increasingly complex and fast-paced, but also increasingly atomized and individualistic in the social sphere, as well as fragmented in the academic and disciplinary spheres. Aspen España represents an excellent antidote to all these - in my opinion - very worrying trends. Indeed, it invites us to stop and reflect calmly and carefully, to collectively analyze the challenges of the present from a transversal and polyphonic approach, which gives crucial weight to the arts and the humanities. At the same time, it generates personal and professional links of enormous quality, which are rarely produced (and maintained) with this intensity.
Emilio del Río Sanz
General Manager of Libraries, Museums, Madrid City Council
Luz Rodríguez
Professor of Labor Law and Social Security at Universidad de Castilla La Mancha
For me, Aspen España is a place where I have learned to listen and to know the different perspectives and sides of different social phenomena. If in academia or politics, I learned arrogance, in Aspen, I learned humility and being aware that dogmatic visions are absolutely wrong and ineffective for solving the social challenges that we face. On the other hand, Aspen is for me a space of serenity and reflection with myself. The readings of the seminars challenge me and make me enter into dialogue with myself and my own positions. This, I believe, has helped me to be more reflective, in general terms, in my thinking. In short, humility, serenity, and reflection.
Javier Rodríguez de Colmenares
Global Head, Private Debt Mobilization, Santander Corporate & Investment Banking
Now, more than ever, we need a space to reflect on how to face current and future challenges leaving no one behind. Aspen España is precisely that space; that oasis for reflection and discussion with the greatest respect and learning every day from the experiences and knowledge of people with different backgrounds but with common concerns. Personally, Aspen España allows me to get to know myself better, to question many things, and to think about how to improve and use my experience for the common good.
Pedro Rodríguez
professor of International Relations at the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas and executive director of Foreign Policy
Being part of the Fellows of Aspen Institute Spain means for me the privilege of thinking and acting from the reading of the classics, the humanistic perspective, the international perspective and the reflection with a brilliant group of people with a diversity of experiences and criteria. Our crowded solitudes and banal haste, which confuse the last with the important, are no way to cultivate critical thinking, to stop to listen and talk, to discern the truth among so much noise and to clarify the recurring dilemma of interests versus values.
Cristóbal Rodríguez Giménez
Counsel to the Council of State
is a Legal Adviser to the Council of State. He is currently attached to the 5th section of the Council of State, which handles cases from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration, the Bank of Spain, the National Markets and Competition Commission and the National Securities Market Commission. He is also an Associate Professor at IE University (where he teaches European Legal History and Administrative Law and Economic Regulation) and a lecturer on the master's degrees at Universidad Carlos III and Centro de Estudios Garrigues. In his professional career, he has spent long periods of time at the Councils of State of France, Italy, Belgium and Luxembourg.
José Manuel Rodríguez Martínez
Director of Global Public Affairs, Iberdrola
Born on 7 July 1979 in Paris, holds a degree in Law from the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas- ICADE. In 2006 he entered the diplomatic service. He began his professional career in 2007 at the Secretariat of State for the European Union in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Head of the Department "Of Justice and Home Affairs. Between 2009 and 2010 he was Counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Spain to the European Union (REPER). In 2010 he was appointed Consul General of Spain in Oran, a post he held until 2013. Between 2013 and 2018 he was Counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Spain to NATO in Brussels. In 2018 and until his incorporation in Iberdrola in 2019, he was a Vocal Advisor in the Cabinet of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs...
Alejandro Romero
COO of Constella Intelligence
In a world where deep reflection, dialogue and consensus are more important than ever, Aspen programs offer a unique space for the development of ideas and debate. As we have seen over the past few years, forums that facilitate learning, understanding and constructive disagreement are essential to encourage vital debates in the public sphere and reinforce one key insight to me: our rights and duties emanate from our status as citizens and not for belonging to a certain group. The Aspen model is undoubtedly the best antidote to the pernicious effects of echo chambers to which we are often attracted. Aspen thus offers a unique opportunity to generate valuable and impactful ideas on our society.
Daniel Romero-Abreu
PRESIDENT & FOUNDER OF THINKING HEADS
Participating in the seminars of Aspen Institute España was for me a formidable and transformative experience. Aspen España offers a meeting point for people from different professions and national origins. And all of them are there to discuss and reflect without sectarianism, with an unusual deep understanding about the issues of the world we live in.
Crista Ruiz de Arana
Doctor in Psychology and Clinical Psychologist
Aspen España means to me a meeting place and an opportunity to reflect. It helps me deepen on essential issues of the human being, enrich myself in dialogue with others, meet valuable authors and new viewpoints. The different activities of Aspen España contribute to improve my personal and professional life; it helps me keep my curiosity alive, develop an “inner self” which allows me to review my priorities, it stimulates me in my clinical practice and in the way I teach. Whenever I can, I attend to the activities of Aspen España, because I return renewed and recharged with enthusiasm to contribute to the common good and be a better person. I really value the friendships I have made there and the training as a moderator.