Lara de Mesa is Global Head of Responsible Banking at Banco Santander since 2018. She is a Non-Executive Member of the boards of the Santander Foundation in Portugal and Inclusión Financiera in Mexico. She is also a member of the Sustainable Finance Committee of the International Institute of Finance (IIF) (based in Washington) and of the Chief Sustainability Officers (CSO) group of the European Banking Federation (based in Brussels).

Previously she was Director of Public Policy at Santander Bank and a partner at Analistas Financieros Internacionales (AFI) in consulting and applied economics. Between 2018 and 2020 she was a member of the stakeholder representatives’ group of the European Banking Authority (based in Paris). She was a member of the International Institute of Finance (IIF) Future Leaders group in 2018.

She holds a PhD in Economics from the Complutense University of Madrid, a MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), research sufficiency and a BA in Economics from the Complutense University of Madrid. She has pursued professional training from MIT-Sloan School of Management, Harvard University, The Wharton School, IESE Business School, IE Business School and the University of Cambridge.