Ambassador Arria is a distinguished diplomat and businessman who served as the Permanent Representative of Venezuela to the United Nations and as President of the Security Council. Recently, he was Special Adviser to the Secretary General of the United Nations and Visiting Scholar at Columbia University. He previously served as Governor of Caracas, Congressman and Minister of Information and Tourism of Venezuela, Visiting Diplomatic Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, and Board member of the International Peace Academy in New York. Arria serves on the advisory boards of Unilever, the Latin American Advisor of the Inter-American Dialogue, the Institute of the Americas at the University of California in San Diego, School of International Service (SIS) at American University, Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University, and the International Crisis Group. He also serves on the Board of Governors of the Museum of Arts and Design of New York and the United Nations Association of the United States (UN-USA). Arria is Chairman of the Advisory Board of Athelera LLC in New York, a strategic financial advisory firm focused on mergers and acquisitions.

Biography courtesy of the Carr Center for Human Rights