Ruben G. Echeverria

Ruben Echeverria’s agricultural innovation career spans more than 30 years at the intersection of agricultural science, institutional design, and development finance. He has built organizations, mobilized capital, and driven structural reforms that continue to shape public international agricultural research today.

As Director General of CIAT from 2009 to 2019, he helped turn a Latin America-focused center into a global institution, expanding its work in Africa and Asia, advancing Future Seeds as one of CGIAR’s largest and most innovative gene banks, and leading the 2019 merger that created the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. This institutional transformation remains a defining part of his legacy.

At the Gates Foundation, he has served as Senior Advisor for Agricultural Development, supporting its partnership with CGIAR, among the world’s largest private investments in agricultural research. Earlier, at the Inter-American Development Bank, he designed and financed major agricultural innovation programs across Latin America and helped create two regional institutions: the Inter-Agency Group for Rural Development and FONTAGRO, the Regional Fund for Agricultural Technology, which continues to support national agricultural research systems.

His advisory and governance roles have reached the highest levels of the global food system. He chaired the Global Commission on Sustainable Agricultural Intensification (COSAI), served on the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security, and led the Scientific Advisory Board of IRTA, Catalonia’s national agrifood research institute, for eight years.
Ruben holds an MSc and Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Minnesota and a BSc in Agriculture from the University of Uruguay. He has completed leadership training at Harvard and IMD and currently serves as Senior Advisor in Agricultural Research for Development.