Iván Duque, EMI Distinguished Fellow

Iván Duque, Former President of Colombia (2018-2022), was the inaugural EMI Distinguished Fellow from 2023 to 2025. The program aims to recognize excellence and foster meaningful engagement between students, academia, and leaders from emerging markets.

During his tenure, Duque:

Delivered keynote speeches, including the EMI Fellows Graduation Ceremony, where he urged students to tackle the global “liberty deficit” and embrace democratic values.
Engaged with students and faculty through seminars, speaker series, and meetings with students, discussing challenges such as climate change, conflict, crisis, and cyber threats. For example, his visit to Cornell Tech, the Emerging Markets Institute Distinguished Fellows Speaker Series, eCornell Keynote: Beyond the Green Agenda.
Participated in 2023 EMI Annual Conference contributing to EMI’s mission of preparing resilient global business leaders. And the 2025 EMI Annual Conference on November 7, 2025 at Cornell Tech.

Iván Duque served as the youngest-ever president of Colombia from 2018 to 2022. Since then, he has been a tireless and inventive champion for the environment and for personal agency, writing numerous books, speaking around the world, and forming partnerships, including with Cornell’s Emerging Markets Institute. His work mixes pragmatism with inspiration, advocating for expert stewardship of financial and natural resources via verifiable information and strong ethics.

He came to Cornell to speak with venerable Professor Miguel Gomez, and together they discussed humanism and society, the relationship between leadership and ethics. He coined the term “biodivercitizens” to describe our personal responsibility to make conscious choices in our consumption and stressed that higher education must be the fearless protector of knowledge. Our students were eager to hear from a leader so energized by his intellectual journey and his sense of purpose.

Duque started out by prompting the audience: “Who are you?” It’s a great question to ask ourselves, every day.