Raúl Pérez

Raul Perez is a civil engineer, lawyer and investment professional whose career spans more than twenty-five years across public administration, private real-estate development and European public finance. He currently serves as Senior Sector Engineer at the European Investment Bank (EIB), the world’s largest multilateral financial institution, where he works on housing, urban development, transport, resilience and public infrastructure investment programmes throughout Europe. As part of the EIB Group’s work on affordable and sustainable housing, he contributes to programmes supporting the delivery of housing across the European Union. Between 2021 and 2025, the EIB Group supported approximately 664,000 housing units through EUR 18.4 billion of financing.

Raul combines an unusually broad multidisciplinary academic background with extensive professional experience. He holds a degree in Civil Engineering, a Law degree, an Executive MBA, an Executive Master in Finance from Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, a Master’s degree in Territory and Urban Planning from Carlos III University of Madrid, postgraduate studies in Urbanism and Territorial Policy, and postgraduate studies in European and International Law from the Diplomatic School of Spain. This combination enables him to approach complex urban and housing projects from technical, legal, financial and institutional perspectives.

Housing, cities and territorial development have remained central themes throughout his career. His professional trajectory has evolved from the local scale of housing delivery and urban planning to the European scale of public investment and housing policy. Before joining the EIB, he held senior positions in local and regional government, working on urban planning, public transport, infrastructure and large-scale housing programmes. As Head of Infrastructure, Mobility and Urban Planning in the City of Parla, near Madrid, he participated in the development of major urban expansion areas comprising approximately 12,000 public housing units, alongside transport infrastructure and urban-regeneration projects. He subsequently served within the Regional Government of Madrid, coordinating strategic territorial-development initiatives and public-private partnership structures for major infrastructure investments.

In the private sector, Raul served as Development Director for Spain and Portugal for a major European real-estate group, leading complex investments through the complete project cycle, from feasibility and land acquisition to planning, financing, procurement, construction and operation. This combination of municipal, regional, private-sector and European institutional experience has given him a distinctive perspective on the relationship between architecture, public policy, finance and project delivery.

Housing has been a constant thread throughout his professional life. His experience ranges from public housing delivery and urban expansion projects to contemporary affordable housing programmes financed through national promotional banks, housing agencies, public-private partnerships and European financial institutions. This perspective allows him to approach housing simultaneously as architecture, public policy, infrastructure, investment and long-term social capital.

Alongside his professional practice, Raul has contributed to European discussions on sustainable urbanisation, demographic change and territorial development and has participated in projects and programmes across Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. His professional interests focus on affordable housing systems, urban regeneration, infrastructure finance, innovative construction methods and the institutional frameworks required to deliver housing at scale.

Through practice, research and teaching, Raul advocates a multidisciplinary approach to housing and city-making, bringing together architecture, planning, governance, finance and public policy. His work explores not only how housing should be designed, but also how the institutional, financial and regulatory systems behind it can enable successful delivery and long-term urban transformation.