F. Tomás Dueñas has served as Costa Rica’s ambassador to the United States since December 9, 2004. After earning a degree in business administration from the University of Miami, Dueñas pursued further education at the University of Columbia, Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania. He has worked in the private sector, as CEO of ESCO InterAmerica, LTD., a construction company, and as chairman of the BoE and Executive Committee of the Costa Rica Investment and Development Board. He has also been BoE Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Costa Rican Central Bank Museums. In 2000, Dueñas served as Costa Rica’s minister of economics and from 2000 to 2002 as Costa Rica’s foreign trade minister and a member of the government’s economic council.

 

Dueñas has also been on the Board of Directors of La Nación, Costa Rica’s largest newspaper and publishing group, and he was Vice Chairman of the WTO Ministerial Meeting at Doha in 2001. He is also credited with having initiated the process that led to the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA).