LatinNews Daily - 18 September 2026

*An overhaul of Colombia’s state oil company Ecopetrol has continued with the appointment yesterday of Carlos Suárez as the company’s new CEO, replacing Luis Felipe Henao who had held the role on an interim basis since August. Suárez was a strategist in the election campaign of new President Abelardo de la Espriella and has no experience in the hydrocarbon sector, according to Colombian business newspaper Portafolio, which stated that his business career, which includes his founding of consultancy firm Estrategia y Poder, has instead focused on strategic communications, crisis management, and public relations. Portafolio reported yesterday that Suárez’s previous work as a lawyer saw him defend the convicted paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso. According to Portafolio, this legal work resulted in him becoming close to De la Espriella, who in the 2000s worked as a lawyer for an NGO, Fundación Iniciativas de Paz (Fipaz), which was founded in 2005 by Mancuso’s paramilitary group, the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) with the goal of building political influence ahead of the AUC’s demobilisation the following year.

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