Argentina’s President-elect Mauricio Macri tapped United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s cabinet chief as his foreign minister in his first major appointment since winning Sunday’s election.
Susana Malcorra, who was born in Rosario in Santa Fe province in 1954, was appointed by Ban Ki-Moon in 2012. Prior to that she worked as Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Programme and as an executive at IBM and Telecom Argentina.
Macri defeated ruling party candidate Daniel Scioli in a runoff vote on Nov. 22 on a pledge to unwind President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s currency controls and trade protectionism and open up Argentina’s economy. With foreign reserves plunging to a nine-year low, he has emphasized the need to lure foreign investment to replenish the central bank’s coffers.
“She is coming to add her vision of international politics in this new stage of change that we will soon begin,” Macri said in a post on his Facebook account. “Argentina needs to connect with the rest of the world’s countries in order to develop opportunities for growth and prosperity for all Argentines.”