Dr. Rosalía Arteaga
Rosalía Arteaga Serrano, J.D., is President of UNIR Ecuador, the Ecuadorian branch of the Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, Executive President of Fundación FIDAL (Fundación para la Integración y Desarrollo de América Latina), and President of RAW – The Glocal Women Foundation. She is the first woman to have served as Constitutional President and Vice President of the Republic of Ecuador, and she was Secretary-General of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (OTCA).
Rosalía became the first President of UNIR Ecuador in February 2022. Read Por primera vez la Universidad Internacional de La Rioja designa presidente en Ecuador, cargo asumido por Rosalía Arteaga. At Fundación FIDAL, a Quito-based foundation devoted to education and the environment, she oversees the annual Concurso Excelencia Educativa for outstanding teachers, the Academia E-STEM, the Centro de Formación para el Futuro leadership school she founded, and the magazines Edu@news and VerdEcuador.
In March 2024, she inaugurated RAW – The Glocal Women Foundation in New York, an independent organization promoting women’s participation in politics, culture, academia, health, and business. Read Mujer del año 2024 en NY con Rosalía Arteaga de The Glocal Women Foundation. She has been Executive President of the production company A. S. Producciones since 1998 and hosts the television interview program Cara a Cara con Rosalía. Watch Rosalía Arteaga TV.
In 2026, she was named to the Board of Directors of Kreab Worldwide, the Stockholm-founded strategic communications consultancy, where she is President of the Advisory Board. Since January 2025, she has been a Global Ambassador of Waterkeeper Alliance, the clean-water movement of 296 community groups in more than 40 countries. Read Waterkeeper Alliance Welcomes Former President and Constitutional Vice President of the Republic of Ecuador to Global Ambassador Program.
Rosalía entered public life in 1986 as a councilwoman in her native Cuenca. Under President Sixto Durán-Ballén, she was appointed Vice Minister of Culture in 1992 and Minister of Education, Culture, and Sports in 1994. In 1996, she was elected Vice President of Ecuador on the ticket of Abdalá Bucaram, the first woman to hold the office. When Congress removed Bucaram in February 1997, she was sworn in as Constitutional President and held office for only a few days before Congress installed Fabián Alarcón as interim president. She remained Vice President until 1998 and ran for President that year. Her account of the episode is the book La Presidenta, el secuestro de una propuesta (1997).
From 2004 to 2007, she was Secretary-General of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, the intergovernmental body of the eight Amazon basin countries, and in June 2007, Brazil awarded her the Order of Rio Branco. Read Marco Maciel registra posse da secretária-geral de organização de cooperação amazônica. From 2008 to 2010, she was Executive Director of Fundación Natura Regional for Ecuador and Colombia, and she served on the Editorial Board of Encyclopædia Britannica and on the board of CATIE, the tropical agricultural research center in Costa Rica.
Rosalía earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Political and Social Sciences in 1981 and a Doctorate in Jurisprudence in 1982 from the University of Cuenca, earned a Master’s Degree in Basic Education from the Federal University of Bahia in Brazil in 1984, and later studied journalism at the Catholic University of Cuenca, completing the program in 1992. She was elected an Honorary Academician of the Royal European Academy of Doctors (RAED) in 2016 with the admission speech Pensar y construir la universidad del siglo XXI, and she is a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science.
She has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt since 2016 and sits on the Board of Regents of the Universidad de Otavalo and the Universidad Internacional SEK Ecuador, the Board of Directors of the Alliance For Women and Girls (AFWAG), the External Advisory Committee of the University of Miami Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas, the Advisory Board of the Global Thinkers Forum, and the Board of Women Political Leaders. She is a Patron of the World Sustainable Development Forum (WSDF) and part of the team of The POP Movement, which mobilizes young people on the Sustainable Development Goals.
In 2026, she received the Rosa de Plata at the 25th Mujeres del Año awards of Revista Hogar for her career and leadership in education, culture, and the defense of democracy. In October 2023, the Andean Parliament awarded her the Condecoración Simón Bolívar for her leadership in education and culture and her contribution to Latin American integration. Read El Parlamento Andino condecora a Rosalía Arteaga, la primera mujer que presidió Ecuador. She holds Doctorates Honoris Causa from the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, conferred in March 2024 alongside Irina Bokova, Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, and Ouided Bouchamaoui, the International University of California, Yacambú University, Rai University in India, and the Cámara Internacional de Liderazgo. Read Rosalía Arteaga investida Doctora Honoris Causa por la Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria de España. In March 2025, she was inducted as an Honorary Member of Ecuador’s Academia Nacional de Historia. Read Rosalía Arteaga ingresa en la Academia Nacional de Historia como Miembro Honoraria.
Rosalía is the author of 17 books of essays, poetic prose, poetry, short stories, and literature for children and young adults, and her poems appear in anthologies in Ecuador and abroad. Her books include the memoir Jerónimo (1992), translated into English, Chinese, Portuguese, Italian, and Braille, its sequel Los otros Jerónimos (2002), and the children’s book La princesa Martina y el chip de los idiomas. She lectures internationally on education and environmental stewardship.
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