Alicia Bárcena is currently the secretary of foreign affairs of Mexico. She is the former Mexican ambassador in Chile and was previously the executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Bárcena has a long history of public service with the UN. She has previously served as under secretary general for management at headquarters in New York, chef de cabinet and deputy chef de cabinet to former Secretary General Kofi Annan, deputy executive secretary of ECLAC, director of ECLAC’s Environment and Human Settlements Division, coordinator of the Latin American and Caribbean Sustainable Development Program of the UN Development Program (UNDP), and director of the Environmental Citizenship Project at the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

Additionally, Bárcena was the founding director of the Earth Council in Costa Rica, a non-governmental organization in charge of follow-up to the agreements reached at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. Bárcena has taught and conducted research at the Autonomous Metropolitan University of Mexico. She has published numerous articles on sustainable development, public policy, environmental issues, and public participation.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology as well as a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University. In September 2014, Bárcena was awarded an honoris causa doctorate by the University of Oslo, Norway.

Caroline is the founder and owner of Copper Hill Strategies, LLC. She has fifteen years of Capitol Hill experience, including a decade with the House Judiciary Committee where she served for eight years as the Chief Counsel of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations. As Chief Counsel, Caroline was at the forefront of developing some of the most high-profile privacy, cybersecurity, national security, and criminal laws of the 21st Century. She authored dozens of pieces of legislation and developed strategies to successfully shepherd those bills through Congress. She utilizes her expertise in public policy and the legislative process to provide client-focused government relations, strategic planning, and legislative development services.

Prior to joining the Judiciary Committee, Caroline was Chief Counsel of the House Republican Policy Committee, Deputy County Attorney for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, and Clerk for the Arizona Court of Appeals. She previously served in the personal office of former Congressman John Shadegg from 1996 to 2000.

Caroline is a member of the Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation Board, the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations, the Arizona Women Lawyers Association, the Arizona Technology Council, the ASU Center for Law, Science & Innovation Community Board, the ASU Law Blockchain Group, and the KU Blockchain Institute Industry Advisory Board. She has guest-lectured at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, the Texas A & M University School of Law, and the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School. Caroline is a 2003 graduate of the Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.