President
Ada Colau Ballano (Mayor of Barcelona) is the president of the AMB and its highest political representative. The presidency manages the metropolitan government and is accountable for its actions to the Metropolitan Council.
Biography
Ada Colau Ballano is the first female mayor in Barcelona's history. Born in the capital of Catalonia in 1974, she grew up in the Guinardó neighbourhood. She is the mother of a boy and a proud neighbour of Barcelona, a city that is a World reference.
Colau dedicated part of her professional career to research and campaign for human rights, with a special emphasis on the right to housing. Her professional and political skills have developed over the past 20 years and are the result of academic studies, the task she carried out in civil society organisations and by participating in social movements.
In the nineties she studied at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Barcelona and completed her training with an Erasmus exchange in Milan. During this same period, and until today, she has been very much involved in several social movements, learning about global debt and international financial institutions. Since 2007 she was professionally linked to non-government organizations, an activity that allowed her to collaborate with UN Special Rapporteurs and specialists in the fields of rights, housing and urbanism.
Her profound knowledge on the impact of the crisis in society pushed her to launch the Platform of People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), of which she was the spokesperson and gave her great public notoriety and acknowledgement.
Ada Colau's political and professional profile combines campaigning for social rights and a strong capacity to generate agreements and broad consensus.
Ada Colau Ballano is the first female mayor in Barcelona's history. Born in the capital of Catalonia in 1974, she grew up in the Guinardó neighbourhood. She is the mother of a boy and a proud neighbour of Barcelona, a city that is a World reference.
Colau dedicated part of her professional career to research and campaign for human rights, with a special emphasis on the right to housing. Her professional and political skills have developed over the past 20 years and are the result of academic studies, the task she carried out in civil society organisations and by participating in social movements.
In the nineties she studied at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Barcelona and completed her training with an Erasmus exchange in Milan. During this same period, and until today, she has been very much involved in several social movements, learning about global debt and international financial institutions. Since 2007 she was professionally linked to non-government organizations, an activity that allowed her to collaborate with UN Special Rapporteurs and specialists in the fields of rights, housing and urbanism.
Her profound knowledge on the impact of the crisis in society pushed her to launch the Platform of People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), of which she was the spokesperson and gave her great public notoriety and acknowledgement.
Ada Colau's political and professional profile combines campaigning for social rights and a strong capacity to generate agreements and broad consensus.