Arianna Huffington and José Luis Leal join Prisa’s board

The Board of Directors of PRISA, the leading media, entertainment and education group in Spanish and Portuguese, agreed today, at its regular meeting held in New York, to appoint two new members to the board: Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group and Spanish economist and businessman Jose Luis Leal.

Arianna Huffington (Athens, 1950) is the president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, columnist and author of 13 books. She revolutionized the world of digital news with The Huffington Post, the leading news and opinion website, founded in 2005 and winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 2012.

Arianna Huffington is one of the most influential people in the media world, and Time magazine has included her twice, in 2006 and 2011, in its annual list of the 100 most influential people. Born in Greece, Huffington moved to the U.K. at the age of 16, where she obtained an MA in Economics from the University of Cambridge. At 21, she was named president of the prestigious debating society, the Cambridge Union.

José Luis Leal Maldonado (1939, Granada, Spain) holds a Law degree from the University of Madrid and another in Political Science from the University of Geneva. He is also certified in Statistics by the Statistical Institute of the University of Paris and has a PhD in Economics from the Sorbonne.

He is currently President of the Hispano-French Association for Friendship and the Fundación Acción Contra El Hambre  (Action Against Hunger Foundation), the Fundación Trabajadores de la Siderurgia Integral (Steelworkers Foundation), Vice President of the Fernando Abril Martorell Foundation and member of the Board of Tustees of both the Dukes of Soria and Euroamerica Foundations .

In 1977 he was appointed Director General of Economic Policy in the government of Adolfo Suarez. In 1978 he was made responsible for the State Secretariat for Economic Planning and Coordination. A year later, he was appointed Minister of Finance, a position he held until September 1980. From 1980 to 1990 he was an advisor to the President of the Banco de Vizcaya. From 1986 to 2001 he chaired the Board of the University of Alcalá de Henares. Between 1990 and 2006, was President of the Spanish Banking Association.