Juan Lucas Restrepo

Juan Lucas Restrepo is Global Director of Partnerships and Advocacy, CGIAR, and Director General of the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). A Colombian and French national, he worked in the agricultural domain, both in the public and private sectors, for the past 25 years. He has significant experience in policy, value chains, markets, and leading agricultural research. He has supported the work of CGIAR through the various governance roles he held over the years in the Committee of Genetic Resources Policy, Oversight and Executive Committees, and as the representative of the Colombian Government on the CIAT Board of Directors as an ex-officio member. Among other positions, in Colombia, he served as the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, as the Executive Director of AGROSAVIA, the largest agricultural research organization in the country, and as Chief Commercial Officer of the National Federation of Coffee Growers. As its Chair, he also led the Global Forum for Agricultural Research (GFAR), hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and its efforts to better integrate the agricultural research for the development community, with change and innovation by farmers. He holds a degree in civil engineering from Universidad de los Andes and an MS in agricultural economics from Cornell University.