Mauricio Cárdenas is a Professor of Global Leadership at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, where he also directs the Master of Public Administration (MPA) in Global Leadership. He is affiliated with Columbia University's Center for Global Energy Policy, where he researches energy and climate policy. As Colombia's Finance Minister between 2012 and 2018, Mauricio led a series of tax reforms that reduced payroll taxes, leading to an unprecedented increase in formal jobs, while also introducing rules to discourage the use of tax havens and penalize tax evasion for the first time. Facing a dramatic reduction in commodity export prices and government revenues, he pushed through the policy of "smart austerity" that preserved high investment and resulted in a sharp reduction in poverty and inequality. He was also part of the team that led Colombia's accession to the OECD. Mauricio was chosen by Euromoney as Finance Minister of the Year in 2015. In addition to Finance, he has been a minister in three other portfolios in Colombia: Economic Development, Transport, Mines and Energy. He was also director of the National Planning Department. He has been Executive Director of Fedesarrollo, Colombia's leading policy research center, and Senior Fellow and Director of the Latin America Initiative at the Brookings Institution. Mauricio is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, and was a member of the World Health Assembly's Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness and Response, Co-Chair of the Carbon Pricing Working Group, and Chair of the World Bank's Doing Business External Review Panel. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. Mauricio has served as Chair of the Boards of Governors of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA).