Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo holds a degree in Modern History from the University of Oxford, where she earned her PhD with a thesis on Juan de Palafox supervised by the prestigious hispanist John H. Elliott. She has been leader writer and chief opinion columnist of the daily newspaper El Mundo and has held a seat in the Congreso de los Diputados (the lower house in the Spanish Parliament) since 2008, the year she was designated a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum in Davos.