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Jorge Máximo Pacheco Matte, a 69-year-old commercial engineer and economist, former minister and former member of Mapu, will return to the company where he developed part of his business career: Codelco. This Wednesday, President Gabriel Boric announced the appointment of Pacheco as the new chairman of the board of directors of the largest company in the country, a position that he would begin to exercise today.
The Codelco table is made up of nine directors, but the resignation of its former president, Juan Benavides, and the vacancy of two directors who represent the workers prevented the minimum quorum of seven members to be able to meet. Until now.
A commercial engineer from the University of Chile, Pacheco Matte is the son of Máximo Pacheco Gómez, a lawyer and historical DC militant who was Minister of Education and ambassador to the Soviet Union in the government of Eduardo Frei Montalva and later a senator for the VII Region between 1990 and 1994. His son of the same name followed his political streak, although a little more to the left: in his adolescence he was a member of the Unitary Popular Action Movement, Mapu.
His business biography began at Banco Osorno, where he was manager of personal banking. Between 1983 and 1990 he was general manager of Leasing Andino and in 1990, in Patricio Aylwin’s government, he became Codelco’s vice president of operations. After leaving the state mining company, he assumed the representation for Chile and Latin America of the multinational Carter Holt Harvey. Between 2005 and 2013 he was Senior Vice President of International Paper (IP) and directed, first, the forestry giant’s business in Brazil and then the regional unit of this company for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Russia. During his business career, he built a heritage that, when he became Minister of Energy, between 2014 and 2018, he had to declare for Transparency. Owner of two companies that honored the years he spent in the Soviet Union -Pushkin and Chekhov Investments-, Pacheco reported assuming mutual funds in Energy for $4,632 million that he then delivered to the Merrill Lynch administration.
In recent decades, he has been director of several companies, such as Falabella, AFP Provida, Lucchetti and Banco de Chile, the last two controlled, at that time, by the Luksic group. Pacheco is a personal friend of Andrónico Luksic Craig. He was also a director of the Center for Public Studies between 1996 and 2014 and a member of the TVN board until 2019.
Patricio Elgueta, president of the Federation of Copper Workers (FTC), affirmed that “we are going to work with the new Codelco authorities, appointed by President Boric, but we will be vigilant so that the bad practices of recent years are not repeated in the main company of Chileans”. In that sense, he added that “we want to have a fluid dialogue despite the differences we have with the appointment and I hope to meet soon with Pacheco since we must resume respect for the workers where Codelco shows us with clear signs that it is not a quota politician but of all Chileans”.
However, within the Confederation of Public Companies, its vice president and president of the National Federation of Oil Workers, Nolberto Díaz, has a different view, since he considered that it is “terrible news from President Boric. He turns his back on the workers, and seriously and inexcusably ignores the complaints of the unions, their Federations, as well as the dozen Reports of the Comptroller General of the Republic, while this man was president of Enap between 2014 and 2017. President Boric appoints in Codelco a defender of Alto Maipo Aes Gener, a friend of the always powerful. Bad news more of the same.
Along with Pacheco’s appointment, Boric nominated two female directors. Although he did not specify when their positions will begin, it was only in May that the current president appointed the replacements for Felipe Larraín and Hernán de Solminihac, two former ministers of former President Piñera who end their terms on that date.
The new appointments fell to Josefina Montenegro and Pamela Chávez.
Montenegro is a lawyer from the Catholic University and Master in Laws from the New York University School of Law and has not only been director of multiple companies; she also knows the public sector. Between 2010 and 2015 she was Superintendent of Bankruptcies under whose management the entire system was reformulated, transforming the Bankruptcy Law into the Insolvency and Reorganization Law.
Pamela Chávez, meanwhile, is an aquaculture engineer from the University of Antofagasta and has a doctorate in Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology from Kyoto University, Japan. Chávez has created two startups. First, he founded Aguamarina SA, a biotechnology company for mining located in Antofagasta, “which develops innovative products and services that optimize processes, reduce costs and ensure the conservation of the environment, in the mining industry,” reads its description. in Endeavor, instance of which he is a part. Then she -after leaving Aguamarina- she created Domolif, to promote the development of innovations for the mining sector. Today, -it is read on the Endeavor portal- it is part of the directories of the Minera Escondida Foundation, the Association of biotechnology companies (Aembio), the Association of Entrepreneurs of Chile (Asech) and the National Council of Innovation for Development (Cnid).
Other appointments
In addition to the appointment of Pacheco, the Executive also appointed other service directors.
Pablo Zenteno Muñoz, a lawyer from the Central University of Chile, was appointed to the Labor Department. Zenteno has a Master’s degree in Employment, Labor Relations and Social Dialogue in Europe from the University of Castilla-La Mancha and currently works as a labor lawyer and is vice president of the Chilean Association of Labor Lawyers (AGAL). Between 2015 and 2017, he worked as a lawyer for the Prosecutor’s Office of the Ministry of Social Development and was a Labor Seremi in the Atacama Region from 2017 to March 2018. In addition, he has been a legal advisor to various entities linked to the world of work, union organization and consultant to the International Labor Organization (ILO).
Meanwhile, for the Prosecutor’s Office of the Ministry of Public Works, the Government appointed Eliana Muñoz Zoffoli, a lawyer from the University of Chile with a Master’s degree in Private International Law from the American University. She has been director of Legal Affairs at the Undersecretary of International Economic Relations of Chile and between 2005 and 2019 she held various positions at the Corporation for the Promotion of Production (Corfo), including legal deputy manager and attorney for its Prosecutor’s Office.
Another of the appointments corresponded to InvestChile, whose director will be Karla Flores, commercial engineer and master’s degree in Applied Macroeconomics from the Catholic University of Chile. Between 2016 and 2021, she worked in different departments at InvestChile, becoming head of strategy and chief economist since July 2019.
In the Environmental Assessment Service (SEA), the Boric government appointed Valentina Durán Medina, a lawyer from the University of Chile and director of the Center for Environmental Law. She also joined the National Lithium Commission in 2014 and participated as an expert in the negotiations of the Escazú Agreement. She is director of the Fundación Espacio Público, and advisor to Comunidad Mujer.