Paula Moreno

Biography

Paula Moreno serves on the Ford Foundation Board of Trustees. From 2007 to 2010, she served as the minister of culture in Colombia—the first Afro-Colombian woman and the youngest person to lead a cabinet-level ministry in the history of the country. Moreno founded and directs Manos Visibles, a nonprofit foundation established to promote social inclusion and peace building in Colombia.

In 2010, Moreno was selected by the Council of the Americas as one of the most influential young leaders in the region. The same year, she received the Order of Saint Charles for her work in government. In 2011, she was awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle by Mexico’s President Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa for contributing to the improvement of Mexico-Colombia relations. She was recently selected to be a Yale World Fellow and has been a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow for Urban and Regional Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also serves on the boards of ASWAD (the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora) and the University of the Andes.

Moreno holds a degree in Italian language and culture from the Italian Institute of Culture and a bachelor of science in industrial engineering from the Autonomous University of Colombia. Studying the sustainable use of biodiversity by local communities in Colombia, Moreno earned a master of philosophy in management studies at the University of Cambridge.