Aurelio Ramos

(Colombia, United States) Managing Director, Latin America Region at The Nature Conservancy, UWC USA Graduate.

Aurelio Ramos Borrero is the Regional Managing Director for the Latin America Region at The Nature Conservancy (“TNC”). Aurelio began his career with TNC in 2003 as the Director of the Northern Tropical Andes Conservation Program. In this role, he directed and worked with his team in pioneering innovative, incentive-based conservation financing strategies across the Andean landscapes of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. One of the major outputs of this work was the design and the development of the Water Funds model, a concept that has rapidly spread across Latin America. In 2009 Aurelio became the Deputy of Conservation for the Latin America Region at TNC, taking the concept of incentive-based conservation to a regional scale. Under his leadership, the Latin America Water Fund Partnership was launched by The Nature Conservancy, the FEMSA Foundation, the Inter-American Bank, and the Global Environmental Facility. Over the past four years, Aurelio has spent much of his time building the three regional strategies: Water Security, Food Security, and Smart Infrastructure.

Prior to joining the Conservancy, Aurelio worked for the Andean Development Bank CAF, the Biotrade Program of the United Nations Conference of Trade and Commerce, as well as the Humboldt Biological Research Institute. In 2001 he was named one of the top entrepreneurs in Colombia by the financial magazine Revista Dinero for his work in creating a bio trade program in the Andean countries which combined business practices with the sustainable use of biodiversity.

Aurelio earned a Master’s Degree in Environmental Economics and Natural Resources from the University of Maryland and the Universidad de Los Andes and received his Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Colombia’s Universidad de Los Andes. He is also a graduate from Armand Hammer United World College as well as attended environmental graduate studies at Oslo University, Norway.

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