Gert Rosenthal

Who is Gert Rosenthal?

Gert Rosenthal Königsberger is a Guatemalan diplomat.

He was born in Amsterdam to a German father and Guatemalan mother and came to Guatemala at the age of three. After secondary education in Guatemala, he studied in the United States and received a BA and an MA in economics from the University of California at Berkeley. He then pursued further studies in economics at San Carlos University in Guatemala City.

He entered government service in 1960 as a part-time economist at the National Planning Secretariat. In 1964 he was appointed representative of Guatemala on the Executive Council of the Central American Common Market, rising to Assistant to the Secretary-General of the Common Market's Secretariat in 1967. Between 1969 and 1970 he headed the National Planning Secretariat, a ministerial-level position. In 1971 he was named a fellow at the Adlai Stevenson Institute for International Affairs in Chicago, United States. Between 1972 and 1973 he directed a project in Guatemala for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, intended to promote the Central American Common Market. In 1973-74 he again headed the National Planning Secretariat

Between 1974 and 1985 he was the Director of the Mexico-based subregional office of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1985, was promoted to Deputy Executive Secretary at ECLAC's headquarters in Santiago, Chile, and, in 1988, to Executive Secretary, with responsibility for the entire Latin America and Caribbean region.