Melina Sánchez Montañés is a participant in the 2023 Climate Leadership Program of the Atlantic Council’s Millennium Leadership Program and a principal investor and vice president of impact at AENU, an impact tech venture-capital fund based in Berlin. Prior to joining AENU, she set up a five-million-dollar fund for the Alfred Landecker Foundation as its managing director and helped build the World Economic Forum’s COVID-19 Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs. Before that, Sánchez Montañés worked as an investor in Israel and the United States at Impact First and Pitango Venture Capital, where she supported the growth fund and developed an impact measurement and management tool for startups.

Before working in impact venture capital, she had an operational role at fintech startup Novus Partners. She also worked in diplomacy with the European External Action Service and Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and she built an international nonprofit called European Horizons. Sánchez Montañés has an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School, and a BA from Yale University.