Fidelis Manuel Leite Magalhães is an East Timorese political economist, public policy specialist and politician, and a member of the People's Liberation Party (PLP).

[4] In April 1999, due to the wave of violence leading up to the East Timorese independence referendum, the Magalhães family had to flee from Maliana.

For six months, he and a friend, Gilberto, lived on dried cassavas, roots, and the charity of jungle villagers, who were equally impoverished and starving.

[3] Following the departure of the Indonesians in the same year, Magalhães left school and started working for the Jesuit Refugee Services as a driver, to support his family.

[2] From mid 2001 to 2002, Magalhães worked for various organisations, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), where for a short period he was its Spokesperson and External Relations Assistant.

He graduated with honours majoring in political, social and literary theories, and was also a top student in Latin American and Iberian literature.

In 2007, he was the Participation Expert on the national dialogue in East Timor for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit [de] (GTZ).

[2] In 2008, Magalhães collaborated with Bishop Gunnar Stålsett, Norway’s Special Envoy to East Timor, in founding the High Level National Consensus Dialogue initiative.

After completing his studies at the LSE, he was awarded a Gulbenkian Fellowship to read International Political Economy in Lisbon, Portugal.

[2] After the announcement that Taur Matan Ruak had been elected as President of East Timor, Magalhães was appointed as his representative to ensure a smooth transition to office.

[9] On the ballots for the early election in 2018, Magalhães was ranked #7 in the Alliance for Change and Progress (AMP), which was made up of the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (Portuguese: Congresso Nacional de Reconstrução de Timor, CNRT), the PLP, and Kmanek Haburas Unidade Nasional Timor Oan (lit.

Since July 2019, he has been the Chair of the Sixth Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development, organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).