INVESTING IN THE NEW COLOMBIA
biographies MODERATORS Lionel Barber Editor Financial Times Lionel Barber is the Editor of the Financial Times. Since his appointment in November 2005, the FT has been pioneering the concept of the integrated newsroom, where reporters and editors work seamlessly across print and digital formats. During Mr Barber’s tenure, the FT has won numerous global awards for its quality journalism, including three newspaper of the year awards (2008), which recognised the FT’s role ‘as a 21st century news organisation’. As Editor, Mr Barber has interviewed many of the world’s leaders in business and politics including: President Barack Obama, Premier Wen Jiabao of China, President-elect Dmitry Medvedev of Russia, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, and President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa. During his career, Mr Barber has received several distinguished awards. In 1998, he was named one of the 101 most influential Europeans by Le Nouvel Observateur and in 2009, he was awarded the St George Society medal of honour for his contribution to journalism in the transatlantic community.
Javier Blas Commodities Editor Financial Times Javier Blas has been the Commodities Editor of the Financial Times since 2010, having joined the newspaper in 2007. He leads a team of reporters based in London, Beijing and New York covering oil, metals and agricultural commodities markets. Previously, he reported on the international economy for the leading Spanish business daily, Expansion. Mr Blas was born in Spain and graduated from the University of Navarra. He also studied at Sheffield University in the UK.
John Paul Rathbone Latin American Editor Financial Times John Paul Rathbone is the FT’s Latin American editor, having previously edited the Lex column. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “The Sugar King of Havana: the rise and fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba’s last tycoon” (The Penguin Press, 2010). Educated at Oxford, where he read anthropology, and Columbia, where he took a masters in economics, he has worked as an economist at the World Bank, and a journalist throughout the Americas and Europe.
Jonathan Wheatley Deputy Emerging Markets Editor Financial Times Jonathan Wheatley is the FT’s deputy emerging markets editor. He was Brazil correspondent from 2005 to 2011, when he moved to London. He lived in São Paulo from 1992, writing for the FT, Business Week, the Economist Intelligence Unit and many others. He previously worked in television news, current affairs and documentaries in London.
SPEAKERS HE Juan Manuel Santos Calderón President Republic of Colombia President Santos was born in Bogota on August 10, 1951. He was a cadet at the Navy Academy in Cartagena; he studied Economics and Business Administration and carried out graduate studies at the London School of Economics, Harvard University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He was Chief of the Colombian delegation before the International Coffee Organization (ICO) in London; he was the most recent Designate to the Presidency and Colombia’s first Foreign Trade Minister. He has also been Finance Minister and National Defense Minister. During this last position, he was in charge of leading the implementation of the government’s Democratic Security Policy. He created the Good Government Foundation (Fundación Buen Gobierno) and founded the political party Partido de la U in the year 2005, currently Colombia’s largest political party. As a journalist he was a columnist and Deputy Director of the newspaper El Tiempo, he was awarded the King of Spain Prize and was president of the Freedom of Expression Commission for the Inter American Press Association (IAPA). He has published several books, among which the most significant are The Third Way, co-written with the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Check on Terror (Jaque al Terror), where he describes the most important actions against the Farc terrorist group during his tenure as head of the Ministry of Defense. On June 20th 2010 (after obtaining the largest vote during the first round of the presidential elections which took place on May 30 of the same year) at the second round of the presidential elections, he was elected President of the Republic of Colombia for the four year period between August 7th, 2010 and August 7th, 2014. He obtained more than 9 million votes, the highest amount obtained by any candidate in the history of Colombian democracy. During his campaign, he promised to lead a government of national unity that would carry out the transition from Democratic Security to Democratic Prosperity.