Lawyer of the Universidad Pontifica Bolivariana of Medellín. Since his appointment as director of the Biblioteca Pública Piloto of Medellín, his life has been linked to education and culture. In 1982 he obtained a grant from the Inter-American Development Bank to carry out studies in Cultural Projects Administration at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Upon his return to the country he was appointed director of the National Library of Colombia. He was also director of the Colombian Chamber of Books and the Colombian Institute of Culture, Colcultura, where he had the opportunity to elaborate and sustain the draft of the General Law of Culture that transformed Colcultura into the Ministry of Culture of Colombia. He served as Secretary of Education of Medellín and as Minister of Culture. Later he was appointed as consul of Colombia in Seville, Spain and as plenipotentiary minister of the Embassy of Colombia in that country. In 2002, he returned to Colombia to work at the Colegio Campestre Horizons, an educational project in eastern Antioquia, and since 2004 he has been the rector of EAFIT University. In 2018, he received the Life and Work Award in Higher Education from the Ministry of National Education, in the awards ceremony La Noche de los Mejores.