Ms. Lorena Ruiz, the new economist of the ICAC Secretariat took up her duties from July 21, 2014. She is the seventh to serve in the position of Economist in the history of the Secretariat following Mr. T.S. Robertson, 1947-1951; Mr. J.C. Santley, 1951-1963; Mr. Elton Thigpen, 1963-1973; Dr. H.S. Singh, 1965-1987, Mr. Carlos Valderrama, 1988-2007, and Dr. Alejandro Plastina, 2007-2014.
Ms. Ruiz is a citizen of Colombia. She holds a B.A. in Business Administration from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and a M.S. in Economics from the Universidad de los Andes, both in Colombia.
Ms. Ruiz worked at the Confederación Colombiana del Algodón, the coordinating agency for Colombia, since from 2003 to 2014. In her capacity first as statistician and then as economist of that organization, she gained experience in evaluating the impact of subsidies on cotton production and other products in Colombia; analyzing the pass-through of prices in the domestic and international cotton market; and evaluating the costs, yields and profitability of transgenic cotton.
She has designed and implemented a monthly survey to monitor cottonseed prices and also developed a report about the production costs of raw cotton. In addition, she was responsible for the preparation of annual statistical reports and is the co-author of several publications. Ms. Ruiz also attended four ICAC Plenary Meetings and is familiar with the work of our organization.
Ms. Ruiz has a deep understanding of the market dynamics and human elements behind the statistics, having worked extensively in the field with cotton growers. The breadth of her experience in data analysis and her practice in dealing with representatives from different segments of the market provide her with the commensurate depth of knowledge to fill this post.
