Biographical Record

David Smolansky served as the Mayor of El Hatillo City in Caracas, Venezuela. His tenure gained national and international recognition for its transparency and notable reduction in kidnappings — despite operating in one of the world's most violent capitals.

His commitment to addressing human rights violations and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Venezuela led him to play a pivotal role in non-violent protests against Maduro's dictatorship. As a result of defending democratic values while serving in local government, he faced arbitrary arrest warrants, removal from his Mayoral role, illegal disqualification from public service, a ban from voting, and ultimately, forced exile.

After fleeing Venezuela, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) appointed Smolansky as the Special Envoy to address the Venezuelan migration and refugee crisis — the largest in the world. He authored 15 reports and conducted over 20 official visits to 11 countries in the Americas, advocating for policies to protect and integrate Venezuelan migrants and refugees who have fled Maduro's regime.

Smolansky's academic background includes a B.A. in Journalism from Universidad Católica Andrés Bello and a Master of International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University. He also served as a visiting fellow at Georgetown University and a Draper Hills Fellow at Stanford University. He is the founder and president of the Miranda Center for Democracy.

The violation of his human, political, and civic rights has been brought before the International Criminal Court, and was featured in reports by the OAS and United Nations on possible crimes against humanity in Venezuela.

Biographical Record

Manuel Avendaño is a co-founder of the Miranda Center for Democracy. His work with Venezuela's democratic institutions dates to his time in public service at the Mayor's Office of El Hatillo, in the metropolitan area of Caracas. He then spent several years at the National Assembly of Venezuela, where he handled the international affairs of the democratically elected legislative institution and led its international agenda from the Office of the President of the Assembly. In that role, he served as an interlocutor before multilateral organizations, among them the OAS, the UN, and the European Union, and supported the diplomatic strategy that sustained Venezuela's democratic legitimacy. He later managed a portfolio of multilateral technical cooperation projects at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) focused on Venezuela, integrating political risk analysis with the fiduciary and execution safeguards that a complex institutional context required.

Today, his work centers on geopolitical risk, public policy, and strategic partnerships. His contribution lies in translating political and institutional complexity into clear decisions for those who must make them. He understands risk analysis, institutional resilience, and democratic security as dimensions of a single problem: how institutions hold up under pressure. Through the strategic advisory firm he founded, he develops this practice with independent judgment of his own. He is a graduate of the Inter-American Defense College (Washington, DC), where he earned a master's degree in Inter-American Defense and Security.

His career of more than fifteen years has one constant thread: a commitment to democracy and to strengthening Venezuela's institutions. That thread connects his work in public service, in multilateral cooperation, and, today, in building independent spaces for institutional thinking. The Miranda Center for Democracy is part of that continuity, intending to bring rigorous analysis and institutional leadership to the democratic challenges of Venezuela and the region.

Biographical Record

Ernesto Romero Surt is a Strategic Intelligence and Geopolitical Risk Analyst specializing in Latin America, with experience across government, international organizations, and the private sector. His work focuses on democratic governance, citizen security, and institutional risk in complex political environments.

He previously served in local government in Venezuela, leading citizen security and public policy initiatives, and later worked with the Organization of American States (OAS), contributing to policy analysis and regional assessments on migration, political risk, and institutional stability.

In addition to his public sector experience, Romero Surt advises organizations on geopolitical intelligence, governance, security policy, institutional risk, and strategic decision-making in complex political environments.

He holds a Law Degree from Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, a Master's Degree in Governance and Human Rights from the Autonomous University of Madrid, and a Certificate in Applied Generative Artificial Intelligence from Johns Hopkins University.

His research interests include geopolitical risk, strategic intelligence, democratic governance, and citizen security policy in Latin America.