Paula Andrea Henao is Vice-Rector for International Affairs at Universidad Espíritu Santo (UEES) in Ecuador. With nearly two decades in higher education, her career stands out for having spanned all three sides of the sector: university leadership, government, and the global rankings and advisory industry. Having studied and worked in public and private universities, first in Colombia and now in Ecuador, she brings an integrated view of how Latin American institutions position themselves in the region and the world.
Her work focuses on building long-term partnerships across more than 40 countries and turning international engagement into concrete opportunities for universities and their communities. She is a consulting member of the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science program, first in Colombia and now, for the second year, in Ecuador.
Paula was an international student herself, first as an AFS exchange student in the United States at 16 and later in Germany and Italy, an experience that changed her life and remains the reason she does this work. An industrial engineer (Universidad Nacional de Colombia) with a specialization in international business and an MBA (Universidad Autónoma de Manizales), she is pursuing a PhD in business administration at UIIX, Mexico. She is a DAAD alumna (UNILEAD, Germany) and a fellow of the Harvard DRCLAS–UAM International Academic Program (IAP).