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Ramiro Villapadierna (Madrid, Spain, 1964) is a culture manager and journalist, and is currently the Head of the Oficina del Español at the Madrid Government, a soft-diplomacy public agency in charge Spanish culture, academics and heritage.
He is also an Executive Director of the Chair Vargas Llosa (Cátedra Vargas Llosa), which showcases and world-wide promotes the cultural and political legacy of the Spanish Literature Nobel Prize winner of Peruvian origin.
He has been a long time reporter and analyst on European affairs and Hispanic culture, and was a War Correspondent during the Balkan conflicts and the Arab Spring.
He has been executive director of the Instituto Cervantes, the global pan-Hispanic institution dedicated to culture diplomacy. For the Institute he has headed its Frankfurt, from where he was dismissed, and Prague branches, and has presided over their EUNIC, the European Network of Institutes of Culture, local clusters.
Previously he was a Berlin, Vienna and Prague based writer and commentator, on Central Europe transitions to democracy and contemporary culture, with several international media and political institutes. As a known flying correspondent, he has been rewarded at the Salvador de Madariaga European Journalism Prize, at the Cirilo Rodrigo Foreign Correspondence Award and the Larra Prize.
He has contributed to several international media, including the DPA, after a long spell as a Central Europe Bureau Head for the Spanish national daily ABC. For it he was posted to Prague, Vienna, the Balkans and Berlin and travelled over two decades the Central and Eastern regions.