Juanma Aceña
A professional with over thirty years’ experience in management, communication, strategic consulting, business development and institutional leadership within corporate, public and social sectors. He currently holds the position of Director of Business Development at H/Advisors – ACENTO (since 2024), where he drives commercial expansion, identifies new opportunities and strengthens the company’s strategic positioning in the public affairs and communications consultancy market.
Before joining H/Advisors, he spent four years (2021–2024) involved in the promotion and development of renewable energy facilities, focusing much of his professional activity on the design and implementation of strategies for engaging with local stakeholders, aimed at building trust, credibility and institutional and social acceptance of the projects.
His professional career also includes a period in the field of corporate communications (2018–2021) as Executive Director of Monkey Events and La Competencia Events, companies specialising in the design and production of corporate events, content creation and brand experiences.
However, much of his professional career has been focused on various advisory, management and coordination roles within the Socialist Party (PSOE). Between 1998 and 2001, he served as Coordinator of the General Secretariat of the Socialist Party in Madrid. And from 2001 to 2014, he served as the Socialist Party’s National Electoral Action Coordinator, playing an active role in all the national, European, regional and local elections held during that period. In his role as Electoral Action Coordinator, his responsibilities included, amongst other things, the planning and management of advertising materials, the design and coordination of electoral events and party congresses, as well as the coordination and planning of the schedules of the party’s various leaders. Finally, between 2014 and 2018, he worked as Chief of Staff to the General Secretariat of the Socialist Party of the Basque Country.
As a freelance consultant, he has advised various candidates standing for mayor in municipalities with over 50,000 inhabitants in the 2019 and 2023 local elections in the autonomous communities of Andalusia and Castile-La Mancha.
He has also held leadership and management roles in the third sector. For nearly three years (2016–2018), he was Director General of the NGO Movimiento por la Paz, where he coordinated the organisation’s development cooperation, humanitarian aid and social action programmes in Spain and in more than 20 countries across Latin America, the Maghreb and the Middle East.
Finally, he held institutional responsibilities at local and regional level between 1991 and 1995. During that period, he served as Councillor and Deputy Mayor at El Escorial Town Council (Madrid) and as Director General for Youth within the regional government of the Community of Madrid.
In the academic sphere, he holds an Executive MBA from the School of Industrial Organisation (EOI) (2009–2011). He also participated in the Public Leadership Programme in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Deusto + ICADE Business School (2016–2017), and in the Management and Administration Programme in Public Administration and Governance at the National Institute of Public Administration (1995–1996).
Throughout his career, he has distinguished himself through his ability to lead teams and take on leadership and management responsibilities in complex environments. His multidisciplinary experience and results-oriented approach establish him as a leading professional in business development, corporate communications and public affairs.
