The 31-year-old that has been appointed to lead Colombia’s efforts to seek foreign funding for peace in the country was until recently taking notes for President Juan Manuel Santos.
Sergio Londoño, an heir of one of Colombia’s political elites, was appointed head of the Presidential Agency for International Cooperation (APC) earlier this month by President Santos in spite public complaints regarding his relative inexperience in international fundraising.
Londoño worked as Santos’ notetaker since the president’s reelection in 2014 and will replace Alejandro Gamboa, a former senior adviser at the Inter-American Development Bank and director with Colombia’s Ministry of Finance. Gamboa has led the agency since December 2014.
Londoño is a descendant of Soledad Roman, the wife of Rafael Nuñez, a former Colombian president. His grandmother, Teresita Roman de Zurek, is a famous Colombian writer and chef known for her 1963 cookbook, “Cartagena de Indias en la Olla.”
After studying political science and international relations at Bogotá’s Javeriana University, he has sidestepped in and out of domestic politics, working as a secretary for the president of Cartagena’s Chamber of Commerce between stints at Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Relations in 2011 and 2013.
Londoño previously ran for congress for Santos’ Social Unity Party in the 2014 elections, but lost by a wide margin.