Mr. Alex Mejía

Member of the High-Level Council

Director of the Division for People and Social Inclusion, UNITAR
Head of the CIFAL Global Network

Mr. Alexander Mejia is a career international civil servant working at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) since 2004. He has been based in Geneva since 2012 as the Director of UNITAR’s Division for People and Social Inclusion. Within the Division he leads UNITAR’s Social Development Programme (SDP). Prior to these posts in Switzerland, Mr. Mejia served for three years as Director of UNITAR’s Hiroshima Office in Japan, and for four years as Director of UNITAR’s CIFAL training center in Atlanta, USA. In his current capacity, he also serves as Director of UNITAR’s global network of 30 CIFAL training centers, and is also responsible for UNITAR’s Nigeria Project Office.

Mr. Mejia is a citizen of Ecuador, and his professional career spans three decades in private and public organizations. He started in 1992, working in corporate banking in Latin America for six years. In 1998, he joined his country’s foreign service as a diplomat, serving as Counsellor at the Ecuadorian Embassy in Bogota, Colombia. In 2001, he became Vice Minister of Economy for the Republic of Ecuador. During this period, he served as Alternate Governor to the International Monetary Fund, to the World Bank, and to the Inter-American Development Bank.

Mr. Mejia has also served as a member of the Board of Directors of Ecuador’s Central Bank. From 2003 to 2005, he worked in Washington, DC as the Director of the Inter-American Council’s Andean Program, an entity chartered by the Organization of American States.

Mr. Mejia holds a master’s degree in International Relations from Georgetown University in Washington DC, and a master’s degree in Business Administration from INCAE University in Costa Rica. He also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Agronomie from Zamorano University in Honduras. Mr. Mejia is a graduate of Ecuador’s Admiral Illingworth Naval Academy.

He is the recipient of the National Order of Merit of the Republic of Ecuador. Established on 8 October 1921, this is the highest decoration awarded by the country.