Biography
Roberto Suárez Santos was appointed Deputy Secretary-General at the IOE Secretariat in December 2012. He is a trained lawyer with experience in European and international labour law, as well as in international relations. Within the IOE, he is mainly in charge of managing, coordinating and supporting the business presence at the ILO. Prior to his appointment, Roberto was based in Tunisia, working as the ILO Programme Director for the promotion of youth employment in the Maghreb region. Before that, he worked at the Spanish Confederation of Employer’s Organisations (CEOE) in various capacities ranging from comparative labour policies and labour relations to youth unemployment and social and employment policy. His most recent position at the CEOE was as Head of European and International Social Policy, where he managed, implemented and evaluated social and youth employment projects. Roberto has also been involved in academia. He has taught European Social Law as an associate professor at both the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas in Spain. Roberto was a member of the European Social Dialogue Committee and has also worked as President of the CSR group for the European employer’s organisation, BUSINESSEUROPE. He was BUSINESSEUROPE’s Vice-President for Labour Affairs for several years and has been the spokesperson for European employers at Euromed meetings such as Marrakech (2009) Barcelona (2010) and Brussels (2011). Roberto was Vice-President of BIAC’s Employment and Labour Affairs Committee, and has also been a member of various follow up committees for the European Social Fund and the EU Economic and Social committee. He speaks English, Spanish and French.
The IOE is the largest network of the private sector in the world. With 157 business and employer federations in 145 countries around the world, the IOE is the global voice of business.
Location
Cointrin, Geneva, Switzerland