José Antonio Ocampo

Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Government of Colombia

Is Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs, co-President of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) and Member of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. He is also Chair of the Committee for Development Policy of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and Chair of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). He also teaches regularly at Universidad de los Andes and other Colombian universities. He has occupied numerous positions at the United Nations and his native Colombia, including UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and Minister of Finance, Minister of Agriculture, Director of the National Planning Office of Colombia, and Member of the Board of Directors of Banco de la República (Colombia’s central bank). He has received numerous academic distinctions, including the 2012 Jaume Vicens Vives award of the Spanish Association of Economic History for the best book on Spanish or Latin American economic history, the 2008 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought and the 1988 Alejandro Angel Escobar National Science Award of Colombia. He has published extensively on macroeconomic theory and policy, international financial issues, economic and social development, international trade, and Colombian and Latin American economic history.