Juan José Guzmán Ayala is currently policy and finance advisor at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center in Washington D.C., where he leads the development of innovative financial structures to forward adaptation efforts and deliver resiliency for vulnerable peoples to face the climate crisis. For the past six years Juan José has been working at the intersection of human wellbeing, economic policy and climate finance with a focus on Global South countries. After a short stint in investment banking, he joined ISF Advisors, where he supported the development of innovative blended finance structures for agricommodities benefitting smallholder farmers and SMEs in low- and middle-income economies. At Transforma, a Colombia-based think tank, he co-led the development of the country’s first climate-related financial risk disclosure initiative, as well as the Latin America desk of the International Climate Politics Hub. He has since supported various governments, NGOs, financial institutions, and private corporations on the development of climate risk analyses, and climate finance and diplomacy strategies, in Colombia and the United States.
Juan José holds a B.A. in Economics and Sustainable Development from Columbia University, and is currently completing a dual master’s in public administration, and public health, at the same university, where he also serves as a Planetary Health Ambassador for the Planetary Health Alliance.