Post Date: November 23, 2003

Beatriz Merino

Beatriz Merino I.T.P./LL.M. ’77 joined the ranks of Harvard Law School trailblazers when she was appointed prime minister of Peru this summer, becoming the first woman to hold that position. A tax expert who headed the National Tax Administration, she first entered politics when she was elected to the Peruvian senate in 1990 after working for years in the private sector.

Professor Emeritus Oliver Oldman who heads the International Tax Program where Merino studied while she was at HLS, says her career is one of the best examples of “HLS grads who move back and forth between the public and private sectors.”

Merino, who led the Inter-American Development Bank’s program for women leaders and was the first woman member of the Andean Commission of Jurists, was recently elected Peruvian Woman of the Year by the local chapter of the Organization of Women in International Trade.

Although the first woman to preside over a Peruvian president’s cabinet, Merino is not the only HLS graduate to have done so. Roberto Dañino LL.M. ’75 served as prime minister from 2001 to 2002.