Jose Juan Ruiz Gomez, a Spanish citizen, is the Chief Economist and Manager of the Research Department at the Inter-American Development Bank. The Department is the sector of the Bank that generates new ideas to enrich the knowledge base that supports the policy agenda of the Bank and its member countries.
Mr. Ruiz comes to the IDB from the Banco Santander, where he served as Director of Strategy and Chief Economist in the Latin America Division. For the past 12 years he has been a member of the Executive Committee of the America Division and has been a member of the Board of Directors of Banco Santiago in Chile, Banco Santander Colombia, Banco Santander Puerto Rico, Banco Santander Peru and Banco Venezuela.
Mr. Ruiz has also held various governmental positions in the Ministries of the Economy, Finance and Commerce. He was Undersecretary of International Economy and Competition and Chairman of the Economic Policy Committee of the European Union from 1991 to 1993. He was responsible for Spain’s relations with the OECD, IMF and the World Bank, where he also served as a consultant. From 1993 to 1996, he was the Chief Economist for Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.
He is a regular contributor to El País and from 1996–2001 wrote a column “Butaca de Patio” for the Spanish economic newspaper, Expansión.
Mr. Ruiz holds a BA in Economics from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and is a member of the Spanish civil service as Técnico Comercial and Economista del Estado
