Non-Resident Senior Advisor Mauricio Rodas

Mauricio Rodas served as the mayor of Quito, Ecuador from 2014 to 2019. Alongside his position at Perry World House, he is a visiting scholar at Penn’s Institute for Urban Research and Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. He is also a senior fellow at the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at the Atlantic Council, and co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Commission on BiodiverCities by 2030. Rodas is a member of the United Nations’ Committee of Experts on Public Administration; a distinguished fellow on global cities at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs; and a member of the advisory committee of the Global Parliament of Mayors. In 2019, he was named one of Apolitical’s “100 Most Influential People on Climate Action” and received the University of Pennsylvania’s World Urban Leadership Award. He is a former Young Global Leader and member of the Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization of the World Economic Forum. During his mayoral term in Quito, Rodas hosted the UN’s Conference on Urban Sustainable Development – Habitat III. He also served two terms as world co-president of UCLG; was vice-chair of C-40 Cities’ Climate Leadership Group; and was a member of the global boards of ICLEI and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy. In 2011, Rodas founded SUMA, a national political party, and in 2013 he ran for president of Ecuador. In 2007, he founded and served as the executive director of Ethos Public Policy Lab, a think tank based in Mexico. Rodas holds a JD from Universidad Católica de Quito, and holds two master’s degrees in government administration and political science from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a Fulbright Scholar.