Luis Ayllón
Casa América’s Governing Council yesterday elected the diplomat León de la Torre as the new Director General of the institution, after the Community of Madrid and the City Council of the capital accepted the proposal made by the Government.
As The Diplomat reported, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had proposed the name of León de la Torre to the other two institutions that form part of the Governing Council, to fill the vacancy left by the appointment of the director, Enrique Ojeda, as ambassador to Morocco.
The appointment of the director of Casa América must be agreed by the three members of the consortium, although the proposal comes from the Foreign Ministry. Yesterday the Minister, José Manuel Albares, who personally attended the meeting of the Governing Council, defended the proposal to appoint León de la Torre, and achieved the consensus of the Community and the City Council.
According to the biography provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, De la Torre, who this year celebrates his 30th year as a diplomat after entering the career in 1994 as number one in his promotion, has accumulated extensive experience in various posts in Latin America, which he has combined with others in the EU (both in Madrid and Belgium), Asia and Africa.
He was also an advisor in the Cabinet of the Presidency of the Constitutional Court in 2005 and 2006 and from that year until 2011, head of the cabinet of the then president, María Emilia Casas.
His diplomatic experience in Ibero-America dates back to 1996, when he held the position of counsellor in charge of consular affairs at the Spanish Embassy in Ecuador, until 1999; from 2001 to 2005 he was at the Spanish Embassy in Chile as cultural counsellor; he was Spanish ambassador to Nicaragua from 2011 to 2015; and EU delegate in Bolivia (2016-2020), and in Chile from 2020 to the present date.
The new Director General of Casa América holds a degree in Law and Business Management E-1 from the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas in Madrid. He speaks Spanish, English, French and German, and has written a book, Yo William Walker (2014), with a foreword by Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez.
