In October 2010, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros y de Simón was about to turn 40 and did not hesitate to pose for this newspaper with an impeccable suit and the beard that still accompanies him along with his father, Carlos. Then he was only the entrepreneur son of the four Marquis de Valtierra, a title he granted Alfonso XIII to his grandfather in 1907 for his military and diplomatic collaboration. This “man, Spanish, Christian, straight, married, father of a large family, patriot, capitalist, conservative, bullfighting and Madridista” showed an interest in politics but it was not yet predicted that, nine years later, he would become a founder and spokesperson in the Vox Congress of Deputies, a newly created party as a scourge of the left and separatism, and even the Popular Party, defender of the unity of Spain against the nationalisms “incompatible with democracy”.
With a family name, his father had carved out an impressive business career linked to power. He went from commercial attache in Chicago in the throes of Francoism to president of Iberia with Felipe González, director of Inditex, president of Mercedes Benz-Spain and, as a last position, high commissioner of the Government of Mariano Rajoy for the Brand Spain until 2018. At that time, Iván, one of his five children, had already approached politics through a training that emerged in 2013 and had not yet achieved any institutional representation. The visible head of him was the leader popular Alejo Vidal-Quadras.
His working life had long been carved out straddling the United States. He graduated in Economics and Business from ICADE, with an MBA from Northwestern University in Illinois (USA), speaks three languages and held positions of responsibility in various auditing, venture capital management and real estate companies in Spain and New York and Miami, where he did not always have good fortune, and had ireal estate investment in Warsaw and Madrid. It was in the capital where he successfully opted for the conversion of industrial spaces into luxury homes, a task he shared with his wife, Rocío Monasterio, an architect with Cuban and anti-Castro origins whom he had met on his American journey. They were married on May 15, 2001, the day of San Isidro, in Esclavas de la Moraleja with the blessing of Pope J.uan Paul II and a celebration at the exclusive Real Club Puerta de Hierro. Together they had four children and together they launched themselves to promote Vox wrapped in their conservative, Catholic, monarchical and economic values. ultra liberal.
It was in January 2012, when he personally met Santiago Abascal at a dinner for Intereconomía gatherings a few days before the Basque appeared at the National Court to testify about the harassment of nationalists he suffered when he was elected councilor of the PP in Llodio (Álava). Espinosa de los Monteros, in what can be interpreted as his first public political gesture, accompanied him before the court. By then, he had already become disenchanted with the Popular Party, from scandal to scandal over corruption. “I was a PP voter, but you get out of everything, like drugs”he confessed in 2019.
Between 2014 and 2016 he was general secretary of Vox, he became deputy general secretary for international relations and in 2019 he obtained a seat that made him the visible parliamentary face of the party. At the time, his wife took the reins of the party in the Community of Madrid. For Joan Baldoví, a Compromís deputy, both became the perfect example of the “far right caviar”.