Juan Manuel Santos Calderón (born 10 August 1951) is a Colombian politician and former Minister of National Defense.

Juan Manuel Santos spent most of his childhood in Bogotá and attended Middle School and High School at Colegio San Carlos. His last years of high school were spent as a Cadet in the Escuela Naval de Cartagena (Naval Academy of Cartagena), where he was a classmate and superior of the FARC-EP guerrilla leader known as Simón Trinidad. He continued his studies in the University of Kansas obtaining a degree in Economics and Business Administration. He later acquired masters in Economics, Economic Development and Public Administration in the London School of Economics and Harvard University.

He earned scholarships from the Fulbright Foundation in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University and from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. He has been awarded an Honoris Causa doctorate in Law.