Isabel de Saint Malo brings extensive international experience working in multilateral organizations, government, and the private sector. Her expertise includes ESG as a critical business issue, sustainability, human capital, corporate social responsibility and human rights in the framework of business risk and opportunity. She is the former vice president and minister of foreign affairs of Panama and was the first woman to be elected vice president and appointed foreign minister in her country.
Currently, she is senior policy adviser to the administrator of the United Nations Development Program and a member of the board of trustees of the International Foundation for Reporting Standards (IFRS), at a moment when the IFRS is working to deliver a comprehensive baseline of sustainability-related disclosure standards. She serves on the advisory board of Institución Internacional SEK, on the editorial board of Americas Quarterly, and on the board of Women Political Leaders Global Forum (WPL). She previously served as independent member of the board of BBVA Panama.
She has led and facilitated over a dozen dialogue and consensus building processes around development issues in Latin America, bringing together diverse views and constructing a common agenda with the participation of different stakeholders. She has advised and supported private sector corporations on their efforts to achieve stakeholder engagement, partnership-building and facilitate the achievement of company goals.
Before joining the government of Panama, she founded the Global Shapers hub of Panama City, an initiative of the World Economic Forum. Mrs. Saint Malo has been a champion in sponsoring issues related to transparency in Latin America and gender equality, appointed expert to the Global Agenda Council on Transparency (2014) by the World Economic Forum and leading the Latin American and Caribbean UN Women-ILO-OECD initiative “Equal Pay International Coalition” and the IDB-WEF Gender Parity Taskforce.
Following the completion of her government mandate, she was invited as a fellow of the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University in 2019 and led a semester long study group on the Sustainable Development Goals and later joined the Advanced Leadership Initiative of the Harvard Business School in 2022, in a one-year program designed to unleash the potential of experienced leaders to solve society´s most pressing problems.
Her career began at the Mission of Panama to the United Nations in New York as one of the youngest delegates to the Third Committee and then served at the United Nations Development Program Office in Panama from 1994 to 2009 on governance, poverty and sustainability issues, rising to manage the program portfolio.
de Saint Malo joined the Dialogue as a Member in 2024.