João Leão is currently professor and vice-rector of the Instituto Universitário de Lisboa. His research interests include regulation, public finance and macroeconomic policy.

João Leão holds a Ph.D in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a M.Sc. and a B.sc. in Economics from Nova School of Business and Economics. 

He has published articles on regulation and competition and on the Portuguese and European economy, including in top journals such as the Journal of The European Economic Association.

He served as Minister of State for Finance of Portugal during 2020-2022. He was a Secretary of the State for the Budget from 2015 to 2020.

From 2010 to 2014 he was the director-general of the Office for Economic Studies at the Portuguese Ministry of Economy. Prior to this, he was a professor of Economics at Instituto Universitário de Lisboa and at Nova School of Business and Economics.

As part of his duties as Minister of Finance, he represented Portugal as Governor of the European Stability Mechanism, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank, the African Development Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank Group and the World Bank Group.

He was also President of the ECOFIN Council during the Portuguese Presidency of the European Council in the first semester of 2021 and the Chair of the Board of Governors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development from 2021 to 2022