Mr Juan Cheaz joined the FAO family in September 2018 following an extensive career in the field of development serving Latin America and the Caribbean. Mr Cheaz is a trained Economist with relevant technical and managerial experience in agriculture and rural development. Just before joining FAO, Mr. Cheaz worked for the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation -CTA (ACP-EU) as Senior Agricultural Policy and Value Chains Officer, and Regional Coordinator for the Caribbean. In addition to this, he has worked for eight years with the International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) on planning, monitoring and evaluation. He spent a similar tenure with Oxfam Great Britain, where he worked as Regional Coordinator for the Caribbean, as Policy Lead for the market-oriented sustainable livelihoods programme, and as Leader of Programme Policy for Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. He then worked with the Latin American Center for Rural Development (RIMISP) leading regional and global projects on innovative local economic empowerment efforts, involving knowledge management and evidence-based policy dialogues.

In his current duties, he will serve the Caribbean region and will operate from the FAO office located in Kingston, Jamaica.