Marta Maurás Pérez
Chair of the Executive Board
Marta Maurás Pérez is Chile’s former ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, with extensive multilateral experience in international relations, development and human rights issues. During a long and varied international career she has held posts including director for economic and social affairs under former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as well as chief of cabinet to the deputy secretary-general. She was the first woman to serve as Chile’s ambassador to the United Nations.
Ambassador Maurás has also held numerous senior positions with UNICEF, working in Latin America and the Caribbean, New York, Swaziland, Mozambique and Pakistan. She organized UNICEF’s work extending basic health services to women and children in conflict zones and emergency situations. In the course of her work, she also took part in negotiations that led to the liberation of 15 teenage girls abducted by the ELN rebel group in Colombia. A sociologist by training, Ambassador Maurás was named one of the most influential Latin American intellectuals of 2017 by the Spanish media outlet esglobal and the Hay Mujeres experts platform.
