Francisco Carrión Mena, who had left his country’s Foreign Service in 2011, was appointed in December 2017 to be Ecuador’s ambassador to the United States.

Carrión was born April 8, 1953, in Quito, Ecuador. He earned a bachelor’s degree in public and social sciences from Central University of Ecuador in 1974 and a Ph.D. in international sciences in 1978 from the same institution.

Carrión joined Ecuador’s Foreign Service in 1974. Beginning in 1982, he was first secretary at the embassy in Paris. He returned to Ecuador in 1988 as adviser and diplomatic coordinator for then-President Rodrigo Borja Cevallos. Carrión was sent to London in 1991 and served as chargé d’affaires there.

In 1996, Carrión was home again, this time serving as under secretary of national sovereignty. He also served on the team negotiating peace with neighboring Peru. He was named vice-minister of foreign affairs in 1998. Two years later, Carrión was named ambassador to Spain.

He returned to Quito in 2005 as minister of foreign affairs.

Shortly after President Rafael Correa took over in 2007, Carrión was named Correa’s representative to the Yasuni-ITT initiative. Yasuni-ITT was a proposal that Ecuador would suspend oil extraction from the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini part of the Yasuni national park if the international community would pay Ecuador $3.6 billion to make up for the lost revenue. The plan was abandoned in 2013.

Carrión was named Ecuador’s permanent representative to the United Nations in November 2009, serving until 2011, when he left the diplomatic corps because of disagreements with Correa’s policies. He had been chairman of the UN’s Decolonization Committee.

Since then, Carrión has taught and written a newspaper column for Diario El Comercio. During this period, he did serve as president of the International Committee of the United Nations for the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families. Carrión was appointed U.S. ambassador by Lenín Moreno, who took over the presidency from Correa in May 2017.

Carrión is married and has two children.

-Steve Straehley

To Learn More:

Francisco Carrión Mena: “I’m Going With the Mission to Open Doors With the United States” (Ecuador Times)

Curriculum Vitae (pdf)