Jorge Glas

Jorge David Glas Espinel (born 13 September 1969) is an Ecuadorean politician and electrical engineer. He has been Vice President of Ecuador since 24 May 2013.

Jorge Glas was born 13 September 1969 in Guayaquil. He has known and been friends with president Correa since their time as boy scouts.

He holds a degree in Electrical and electronics engineering from the ESPOL which he obtained on 22 September 2008. National Assembly member for the Patriotic Society Party, Galo Lara, reported Glas on 3 January 2013 to the police for plagiarism in his thesis and for holding public office while not being qualified to do so. Lara said that Glas during his term as General Manager of the Solidarity Fund needed an academic title of the third degree, which Glas did not have. Glas his thesis was reviewed by Genove Gneco, a professor from the Dominican Republic who found suspected plagiarism in four thesises by top governmental officials in his own country, including the current President Danilo Medina. Gneco investigated Glas his thesis and found 35% of it to be suspected plagiarism. An investigation by a commission set up by ESPOL acquitted Glas of plagiarism. Glas however recognized that he should have cited his sources better.

Since 2007 Glas has held several political appointments in the government of Rafael Correa. He was General Manager of the now shut down Solidarity Fund between 2007 and 2009. The company was an amalgamation of several public companies of telecomunications and electricity generation and distribution. He was also the President of the National Telecomunications Council.

Afterwards Glas was Minister of Telecommunications and later became Coordinating Minister of Strategic Sectors. He directed the merge of Andinatel S.A. and Pacifitel S.A. into the National Corporation of Telecommunications, a corporation of which he became its first chairperson.

As Coordinating Minister of Strategic Sectors he was responsible for the building of several hydroelectric plants for which he borrowed money mainly from Chinese banks.

Glas commenced his term as Vice President on 24 May 2013.