Santiago Bañales is Managing Director of Iberdrola Innovation Middle East (ME), Iberdrola’s global development center of digital solutions for the energy industry, since 2016.

He has 25 years of energy industry experience fulfilling executive roles in R&D, Engineering, Product Development, Management Consulting, M&A and General Management. During the development of his career he has experienced a wide breadth of business environments in an international setting, being part of or doing business with state-owned (Electricité de France) and private utilities (Endesa, Iberdrola), management consulting firms (Kearney), private equities and family-owned manufacturing businesses (Ormazabal). Previous to his current role Santiago was CEO of Ormazabal Current, a global smart grids product manufacturing with facilities in US, Switzerland and Spain.

Santiago holds a Master of Science in Technology and Policy form the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT – (Fulbright Fellow) and a Dual Engineering Degree from Ecole Centrale Paris and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. He is a published author and has been involved in graduate and executive education for more than 15 years.

He is also an INSEAD-certified International Board Director, having held executive and non-executive Board Directorships positions in several energy industry associations, startups and universities.