Mónica Ballesteros Arias ’11

Senior Manager, Policy & Insights at Economist Impact

She is passionate about merging data, evidence-based policy and storytelling to drive change. Currently, Mónica is a senior manager in the New Globalization practice at Economist Impact, an independent think tank embedded in The Economist Group. Most recently, she led the creation of the Childcare Dividend Initiative, a platform that aims to bring childcare to the forefront of the global economic debate.

Prior to her time at The Economist Group, Mónica worked in the International Affairs Unit of Mexico’s Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, where she was part of the G20 taskforce. She also worked in PRoa I Grupo Structura, one of Mexico’s most prominent communications’ consulting firms.

Mónica was an Albright fellow in 2010 and she once famously cracked a joke that made Madeleine Korbel Albright chuckle. She will cherish this memory forever and is honored to contribute to Secretary Albright's goal of building an institute that educates and inspires a cadre of Wellesley students to create a more just world.

Mónica holds an M.A.in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, a B.A. in Political Science from Wellesley College and an I.B Diploma from the United World College of the Atlantic. She obtained these degrees with generous scholarships from Fletcher’s Bosworth Scholarship Fund, Mexico’s National Council for Humanities, Science, and Technology (CONACYT), the Davis UWC Scholars Program, and UWC Mexico.