Santiago Mendía is LatAm Regional Manager at AHI, born in Chile, with a bachelor’s degree in management and economics from the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Chile and a master’s degree in Public Policy specialized in Social Policies from Sciences Po, Paris.
Santiago has an extensive career linked to the housing sector. He began his professional journey in a family real estate business, followed by experience in the international NGO Fútbol Más, working in vulnerable neighborhoods across Chile. In 2019, he joined the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism of Chile (MINVU) as a junior advisor to Deputy Minister Guillermo Rolando, where he was responsible for identifying and managing the most critical social housing projects in Chile. During this three-year experience, alongside his primary task of project management, he was involved in various aspects of the Ministry, such as monitoring the Ministry’s performance, preparing budgetary proposals to the Ministry of Finance to increase MINVU’s budget, evaluating the rise in construction materials costs during the pandemic, and assisting in the development of new social housing projects, among other activities.
Additionally, at the beginning of 2022, he joined the NGO Déficit Cero as a research advisor, where he was in charge of developing a new periodic report on the status of the housing sector in Chile, which continues to be published every three months by the organization. He also studied the housing deficit in the country. Concurrently, he conducted a study on the evolution of social housing demand and supply from 2017 to 2022 at a local level, analyzing the gap in each of the 345 municipalities of the country, publishing a document, and holding a seminar with regional and local authorities.
After arriving in Paris and starting his studies at Sciences Po, Santiago joined the Social Policy Division at the OECD, where he worked with the housing and homelessness team, conducting research on affordable housing, updating and refining the Affordable Housing Database, and analyzing specific countries and cities. He also contributed to the development of the Policy Toolkit to Combat Homelessness.
Following this experience, Santiago joined AHI as an intern, becoming the LatAm Regional Manger, developing projects primarily in Latin America.
Outside of work, Santiago loves sports and traveling. He speaks Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese.
