Ambassador Dueñas previously served as chief executive officer of ESCO InterAmerica, chairman of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Costa Rica Investment and Development Bank, a fellow at the Aspen Institute Leadership Program, and chairman of directors at Procomer. In addition, Ambassador Dueñas was Costa Rica’s minister of economics in 2000, as well as the minister of foreign trade (2000-02), during which time he was also a member of the Economic Council of the Costa Rican government. He is a member of the Board of Directors of La Nación, Costa Rica’s largest newspaper and publishing group, and he served as chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Costa Rican Central Bank Museums. Ambassador Dueñas has been a staunch proponent of Costa Rica’s political and economic openness to the international community, serving as vice chairman of the World Trade Organization Ministerial Meeting at Doha in 2001 and as Costa Rica’s chief negotiating minister for a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, as well as various other free trade agreements. He is also credited with initiating the process that led to the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States.

Ambassador Dueñ as earned a degree in business administration from the University of Miami, after which he studied at the University of Columbia, Stanford and University of Pennsylvania. Ambassador Dueñas is married to Diana Chavarría, a graduate of the University of Costa Rica Law School.