Luis Alberto Moreno


Luis Alberto Moreno Mejía is a Colombian businessman and former diplomat. He was the Colombia's Ambassador to the United States under president Andrés Pastrana Arango and the former President of the Instituto de Fomento Industrial. He is the current President of the Inter-American Development Bank where he has served since 2005.

Early life and education

Moreno was born in Philadelphia to a Colombian father who at the time was attending medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. He was raised in Bogota, where he studied at Colegio San Carlos and returned to the United States to attend college. He obtained bachelor's degrees in Business Administration and Economics from Florida Atlantic University in 1975 and an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in 1977.

Career

Early career

Moreno was Executive Producer of "TV Hoy", an award-winning news program, from January 1982 to September 1990. For his distinguished work in the field of journalism, he was awarded a Nieman Fellowship by Harvard University.

Government

During the administration of Colombian President César Gaviria, Moreno worked in several cabinet positions. Moreno was the President of the Instituto de Fomento Industrial which was a holding company for many of the largest state-owned enterprises. While at IFI, he pushed for a large privatization plan in the country. He was later appointed Minister of Economic Development.
In 1998, Moreno was named Colombia's Ambassador to the United States by newly elected president Andrés Pastrana Arango. He was the ambassador for seven years and oversaw a dramatic improvement in Colombian-U.S. relations. He helped build bipartisan support in the United States Congress for passage of more than US$4 billion in U.S. assistance programs for Colombia. He also worked on a free trade accord between Colombia and the United States.

Inter-American Development Bank

In 2005, Moreno was nominated for president of the IDB by the administration of President Álvaro Uribe. He took office in October that same year. He was re-elected in 2010 and again in 2015.

Awards

In 2017, he received the Distinguished Leadership Award for Social Equity from the Inter-American Dialogue.

Personal life

Moreno is married to María Gabriela Sigala, a Venezuelan philanthropist. He has two children, Nicolas and Natalia.