Corporate governance

Born in Madrid in 1957

Miguel Sebastián graduated with a degree in Economic and Business Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid. He also has a PhD in Economics from the University of Minnesota (USA) and a doctorate from the Complutense University of Madrid.

In the academic field, he has been deputy director of the magazine "Moneda y Crédito" and a member of scientific committees at Revista Española de Economía, FEDEA and NOMISMA. He is Professor of the Fundamentals of Economic Analysis at Madrid Complutense University’s Faculty of Economic Sciences.

He has worked in the Ministry of Economy and Finance’s General Planning Office and the Research Department at the Bank of Spain. He has been the General Manager of Intermoney. In 1996 he was appointed Chief Economist (Director of the Research Department and Deputy Director General) at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, and following its merger held the same post at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria until 2003. He has acted as consultant for several multilateral organisations. He has been a member of the Executive Committee at the International Conference of Commercial Bank Economists and the Governing Board of the Spanish Association of International Economics and Finance.

He was a member of the Editorial Board at Expansión and Actualidad Económica. He has contributed articles to El Mundo, 20minutos, Alnavío.com, El Independiente and la Informacion.com. He currently publishes a fortnightly column in El Español/Invertia and is a guest on La Sexta, Cadena SER and other broadcasters. He is an occasional consultant at GLC Research, at Aquila Clean Energy and at Gate Center.

In the political sphere, he was coordinator of the Economic Program for the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) in the 2004 General Election and Director of "Economistas 2004". In 2004 he was appointed Director of the Spanish President’s Economic Office (with the rank of Secretary of State). In 2005 he was appointed Coordinator of Spain’s National Reform Program ("Mr Lisbon"). In December 2006 he was nominated as the PSOE Candidate for the Office of Mayor of Madrid. In April 2008 he was appointed as the Spanish Government’s Minister of Industry, Tourism and Trade, a role which he held during the whole of the 9th legislature until December 2011.