The nature of the electroweak Higgs sector

In this talk I will first discuss the main features of electroweak symmetry breaking in the Standard Model and in particular I will focus on the Higgs sector responsible thereof. I will highlight the deficiencies of the Standard Model both from the experimental ( Dark Matter, baryogenesis,...) and theoretical ( ultraviolet sensitivity of the Higgs mass, unexplained flavor textures in the quark and lepton sectors, lack of unification of gauge couplings, strong CP problem,...) points of view which largely motivate extending it to Beyond the Standard Model scenarios. We then briefly review some of the scenarios which aim at solving some of the above problems. In particular we have discussed the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model, Little Higgs models, gauge-Higgs unification scenarios and the possibility of the Higgs living in a conformal sector (un-Higgs) as a solution to the hierarchy problem. In all cases we have focused on the electroweak sector of the models and the particular solution they offer to the Standard Model problems.