Alberto Trejos holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. As an academic, he has been in the faculty of Northwestern University and INCAE Business School, where he serves as Dean and formerly as Director of its policy think-tank, the Latin American Center for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development. He has also been a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan, the Institut d´Anàlisi Econòmica de Barcelona, and the Federal Reserve System. He has published extensively both in academic technical journals and for practitioners, mostly on monetary economics, macroeconomics, international trade and development.
As a policy-maker in his native Costa Rica, he served as Minister of Foreign Trade, and in that capacity led the negotiation of DR-CAFTA, the trade agreement with the US. He was one of the original members of the Financial Supervision Board and, for nearly a decade, was President of CINDE, the Investment Attraction Agency. He also participated in the design and negotiation of the national pension system reform. He is a founding director of South Africa´s Brenthurst Foundation, the Demo Lab, the School of Global Public Health of New York University, the Johannesburg Business School, and has chaired the Arias Foundation for Peace and Democracy. He has also been a panelist (judge) in disputes at the World Trade Organization.
Trejos has worked for governments, international organizations and companies in over 50 nations across the Americas, Europe and Africa. He is the vice-chairman of the Cuestamoras Corporation. He also belongs to the board of BAC-Credomatic Bank and is a senior partner of the consulting firms CEFSA and DRP.