José Luis Chicoma is the Program Chair of The Future of Food at THE NEW INSTITUTE. He has served as Minister of Production in Peru, overseeing the fishing, aquaculture, and food market sectors. He has held several senior roles in Peru’s public sector, including Vice Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises and Industries, and Director of Export Promotion at PROMPERU.
In recent years, he has worked as a senior advisor and consultant on food systems for a range of organizations, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), among others.
He contributed to the High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) report on strengthening urban food systems and previously served as Executive Director of Ethos, a Mexico City-based think tank focused on governance and sustainable development. In 2023, he was Guest Editor of a special issue on food and power for Foreign Affairs Latin America. He regularly writes and speaks internationally on the intersection of politics and food. In 2022, he taught Global Food Systems at both the Universidad Católica del Perú and the Universidad del Pacífico. He holds a Master in Public Policy from Harvard, and is a Yale World Fellow, Stanford Fisher Fellow, and Bellagio Resident.