Manuel Muñiz

Manuel Muñiz is the provost of IE University in Madrid and a professor of practice of international relations. As provost, he is a key contributor to IE’s strategic development, and responsible for its international expansion and strategic alliances. Muñiz is also the dean of IE’s School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs (SPEGA). SPEGA has an internal and adjunct faculty of over 100 professors, and 1,500 students distributed across undergraduate and graduate programs in economics, politics, international relations, and international development. He is also the chair of the board of the IE New York College.

In June of 2023, Muñiz was elected president of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA), the preeminent organization bringing together the world’s top schools of global affairs and public policy. In that same year he was appointed a nonresident senior fellow in Brookings’ Foreign Policy program.

From 2020 to 2021, Muñiz was state secretary (vice minister) at the Spanish Foreign Ministry. In this capacity he led the strategy and foresight unit at the ministry, as well as the economic diplomacy team and the communications department, including the Office for Diplomatic
Information. During this time, he coordinated the crafting of Spain’s 2021-2024 Foreign Action Strategy, and led the work on the National Strategy on Technology and Global Order, a document aimed at launching Spain’s technology diplomacy. While in office, he also coordinated
Spain’s OECD ministerial presidency of 2020 and was a member of the prime minister’s COVID-19 task force.

From 2015 to 2017, Muñiz was the director of the Program on Transatlantic Relations at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. And from 2017 to 2020, he was a senior associate at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, as well
as one of the promoters of its Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship.

Muñiz’s academic work has focused on the impact of technology on social and economic trends. He has studied the drivers behind the rise of populism and its effects on global affairs and has written extensively about the fracturing of the social contract in western countries and the rise of anti-elite and anti-democratic sentiment.

Muniz holds a Juris Doctor from the Complutense University in Madrid, a Master of Science in financial markets from the IEB, a master’s in public administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a doctorate international relations from the University of Oxford. He is a permanent Member of the Royal European Academy of Doctors, a member of the advisory committee of the Club of Madrid, a member of the board of trustees of the Ortega-Marañón Foundation, and a council member of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Muñiz is a recipient of a number of awards and recognitions including the Trilateral Commission’s David Rockefeller Fellowship, the Körber Foundation’s 2017 Munich Young Leader Fellowship, the Atlantic Council’s Millennium Fellowship, and the Eisenhower Fellowship. In
2016, he was recognized by Esglobal as one of the 25 intellectuals having the greatest impact on our thinking about Iberoamérica.

Affiliations:

• Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB), member, scientific council
• Club de Madrid, member, advisory council
• European Council on Foreign Relations, member, advisory council
• Fundación Ortega-Marañon, member, board
• Hill+Knowlton Strategies Spain, member, board
• Real Instituto Elcano, member, scientific council