Mauricio Cárdenas Santa María

Mauricio Cárdenas Santamaría (born 9 June 1962) was the 69th Minister of Finance and Public Credit and former Minister of Mines and Energy of Colombia, serving in the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón. Prior to this, he was a Senior Fellow and Director of the Latin America Initiative at the Brookings Institution. For the Government of Colombia, he has also served as the 4th Minister of Economic Development, the 6th Minister of Transport, and former Director of the National Planning Department, and in the private sector has served as 11th and 9th Director of the Higher Education and Development Foundation (Fedesarrollo), as the 7th President Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA), as former President of Titularizadora Colombiana S.A., and as General Manager of Empresa de Energía de Bogotá S.A. ESP.

On 20 September 2011 President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón designated Cárdenas to succeed Juan Carlos Echeverry as Minister of Economy. He was sworn in as the 29th Minister of Mines and Energy on 26 September.

Born to Jorge Cárdenas Gutiérrez, former President of the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia, and his wife Cecilia Santamaría Botero on 9 June 1962 in Medellín, Antioquia; the third of four children, his other siblings are: Patricia Eugenia, Jorge Hernán, and Eduardo. On 10 January 1998 he married Cristina Fernández Mejía in a Catholic wedding at the Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo Church in Cartagena de Indias; together they have two daughters: Isabella and Andrea.