A group of ten young Americans from different professional fields and with outstanding projection visited Spain and some of its main companies and organizations this week with the aim of updating a positive image of the country and spreading it in their respective circles of influence upon their return to the United States.

This group of Americans visited Madrid and Santiago de Compostela for a week as part of the 24th edition of the ‘Young American Leaders’ visitors program jointly promoted by the Spain-US Council Foundation and the United States Spain Council.

This year’s participants come from organizations as diverse as the U.S. Department of Education, the Fox Corporation, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and U.S. Congressional offices.

In Madrid, they were received at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, the Madrid City Hall, the U.S. Embassy and had lunch with a representative of the Ministry of Health. They also visited the headquarters of companies such as Indra, Amazon Web Services and Banco Santander.

The Director General of the Elcano Royal Institute, Charles Powell, gave them an overview of the Spanish socio-political reality and its role within the European Union, and the former RTVE correspondents in Washington D.C., Anna Bosch and Lorenzo Milá, explained the vision that Spain has of the U.S. and how they were in charge of reporting on the country. They also participated in a round table at the Aspen Institute.

In Galicia, in addition to walking the last kilometer of the Camino de Santiago and immersing themselves in the peculiarities of Galician culture, they visited the Inditex offices in Arteixo and BioIncuba Tech. They were also received by a delegation from the Government of the Xunta.

This carefully prepared program served to offer the participants a panoramic view of the socio-political, business, cultural and institutional reality of our country.

The ‘Young American Leaders’ emphasized that the program not only helped them to get to know Spain better, but also to discover aspects in which it stands out as an international power, such as technologies related to transportation or finance, and those of social policies in which it is a pioneer.