Francisco Pinto Balsemão is a former Prime Minister of Portugal, who served from 1981 to 1983.

Pinto's pre-political career was in newspaper publishing. After working as a journalist and then as an administrator of Diarío Popular (the People's Diary in English) from 1963 to 1971, he founded the Expresso magazine in 1973 and continued to direct it until 1980.

Pinto Balsemão made his political debut following the Carnation Revolution in 1974, when, together with Francisco Sá Carneiro and Joaquim Magalhães Mota , he helped to found the Social Democratic Party (PSD). In 1975 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly, which was charged with drafting a new constitution and served as an interim legislature. Pinto Balsemão was chosen as a Vice-President of this body.

Following the victory of the Democratic Alliance (a coalition led by the PSD) in two parliamentary elections (in 1979 and 1980), Pinto Balsemão held senior positions in two cabinets led by Prime Minister Sá Carneiro.

When Sá Carneiro was killed in an air accident on 4 December 1980, the Social Democratic Party chose Pinto Balsemão to succeed him. Despite his reputation for competence, he was widely perceived as lacking Sá Carneiro's charisma. He had difficulty maintaining the level of support enjoyed by his party, which had been based to a large extent on Sá Carneiro's personal popularity. He also had to cope with friction within the Democratic Alliance, and found the Democratic and Social Centre leader, Diogo Freitas do Amaral, a difficult ally. These factors contributed to his defeat in the parliamentary election of 1983. He finally retired from Parliament in 1987.

Pinto Balsemão currently serves as Chairman of the European Publishers Council (1 and as Chief Executive Officer of Grupo Impresa in Portugal. He is also a member of the secretive Bilderberg Group, and as such has attracted some controversy.