Isabel Mota
| Isabel Mota link (Financier) | |
|---|---|
| File:9301271342 6be877d06f o.jpg | |
| Born | 15 August 1951 |
| Nationality | Portuguese |
President of the Board of Trustees of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. | |
Isabel Maria de Lucena E Vasconcelos da Cruz de Almeida Mota is a Portuguese businesswoman and politician. She was chair of the Board of Directors of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation between 2017 and 2022. She coordinated the National Strategy for Sustainable Development in 2004.
Education
Graduated in Economics and finance, she was an assistant at the Higher Institute of economic and financial Sciences of the Technical University of Lisbon for two years.
Career
she started working in public administration — she was Deputy Director-General of the Office for External Economic Cooperation, advisor to the Directorate-General of the Treasury of the Ministry of Finance and adviser at the Permanent Representation of Portugal to the European Union in Brussels. She was responsible for the representation of Portugal in several multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank, the European Investment Bank, the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.
Mota was part of the two governments of absolute majority of Aníbal Cavaco Silv as Secretary of State for Planning and Regional Development, assuming responsibilities in the negotiations with the European Union of the structural and cohesion funds for Portugal, between 1987 and 1995.
In 1996 she was director of the Budget, Planning and Control Service of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, becoming administrator of this institution in 1999.
She was part of the General Council of Telecel/Vodafone (2001-2003), of the strategic Commission for the Oceans (2003-2004) and coordinated the preparation of the National Strategy for Sustainable Development (2004). She was a member of the economic and Social Council of Portugal (until 2016).
She has been a non-executive member of the Board of Directors of Banco Santander-Totta since July 2015.
On December 7, 2016, she was unanimously elected by the plenary Board of Directors of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation as its president. She left office on 3 May 2022 and was succeeded by António M. Feijó.
In May 2020, the Gulbenkian Foundation "accepted the challenge launched by the European Commission and the Portuguese Government that intends to create a cooperation platform to raise funds destined to support a global response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This initiative will be combining the efforts of governments, entrepreneurs, foundations and citizens of the European Union to raise €7.5 billion with the intent of accelerating the development, production and distribution of vaccines, as well as the diagnose and treatment of Covid-19." Melo "praised the Portuguese scientists who have been capable of giving an immediate response and started networking almost spontaneously in a unique way." She "also stressed that this initiative will set the necessary scale to find the vaccine and assure its global distribution."[1]
The Foundation provided more 50 mobile injection vans to the Ministry of Health as a means of supporting the Covid vaccination plan. The project "Gulbenkian wherever needed", provided five dozen vehicles and vans to take the "vaccine" to 50,000 of the less mobile part of the population.[2]