Andres Valenciano Yamuni is the CEO of Democracia+, an initiative of the VélezReyes+ Foundation that brings together a network of organizations inspiring and developing political leaders committed to strengthening democracy across Latin America. He previously led the Washington, D.C. Office of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, advancing regional development, economic policy, and multilateral cooperation.

As Costa Rica’s Minister of Foreign Trade, he oversaw the country’s accession to the OECD, modernized the Free Trade Zone regime, and positioned Costa Rica as the world’s top destination for greenfield FDI. Earlier, he served as Executive President of Costa Rica’s National Institute of Learning, leading a major institutional transformation to expand access to technical and vocational education, and previously served as Executive Director of several NGOs implementing development projects in over a dozen countries.

Alongside his executive roles, Andrés is Senior Research Advisor at the TIDE Center (Oxford University), a Steering Committee Member for the Planetary Health Institute (Johns Hopkins University) and the Remaking Trade Project (Yale University, The Fletcher School, and the University of the West Indies), and serves on the Advisory Board of Programa Estado de la Nación in Costa Rica.

He holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Costa Rica, a Master’s in International Business from The Fletcher School at Tufts University, a Master’s in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and is a Senior Fellow in Public Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.