María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar
María Ángela Holguín is a Political Science graduate and has twenty years’ experience of the public and private sectors. She has held senior posts in government, such as the Office of the President, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the office of the Inspector General.
She has a great grasp of policy and management alike, and her commitment and sense of responsibility have brought many successful results.
As a qualified diplomat, María Ángela Holguín has vast multilateral experience in the coordination of conferences and summits. As Ambassadress and Permanent Representative of Colombia at the United Nations she has displayed a high level of commitment and respect for multilateral processes.
The Minister earned her Political Science degree at Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá in 1988; and she then took graduate studies in Diplomacy and Strategy at Centre d´Études Diplomatiques et Stratégiques – CEDS, París, Francia (1999). She took further post-graduate courses in Public Management and Administrative Institutions at Universidad de los Andes (1992), where she also took the Senior Government course in 2007.
She has also studied Theory and Tools in Negotiations at Harvard (1997), and French Civilization and Literature at Université Paris – Sorbonne, en 1983.
As part of her experience as a professional diplomat María Ángela Holguín was also Colombia´s Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs and Acting Minister (1998), Ambassadress and Permanent Representative of Colombia at the United Nations (2004 – 2006), Colombian Ambassadress to Venezuela (2002 – 2004) and Acting First Secretary for Commercial Affairs at Colombia´s Embassy in France (1992).
She was also Coordinator for Colombia of the IDB Assembly and Corporación Interamericana de Inversiones (1997), and Executive Director of the Regional Conference for Children in Latin American and the Caribbean (1997).
In 1995 – 1997 she was Technical Secretary of the Ministerial Conference of the Ministerial Meeting of Cultural Affairs and on the XI Summit of Heads of State and Government, both events arranged by the Non-Aligned Movement.
She was Regional Director for Latin America of Worldview International Foundation in 1999 - 2002, and Adviser to the President of Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF) in 2006 and the CAF Representative in Argentina in 2008-2010. This was her last post before President Juan Manuel Santos appointed her as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
María Ángela Holguín was also Staff Director for the Office of the Vice-President (2006 – 2008), Coordinator of the International Affairs Committee for the Presidential Campaign of Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2001 – 2002), Assistant Director of the Administrative Department of the Office of the President (1996), Private Secretary to the Office of the Inspector General (1991) and Director of the Democracy-Building Programme of Universidad de Los Andes, in 1988.
