Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brazil)
President, Instituto Fernando Henrique Cardoso

Fernando Henrique Cardoso served as the president of Brazil for two terms from 1995 to 2002, winning both elections in the first round by an absolute majority.

Mr. Cardoso began his political career when he was elected alternate Senator for the state of São Paulo for the Brazilian Democratic Movement in 1978, serving until 1979. In 1983, he was elected Senator and in 1985 became the Leader of the Brazilian Democratic Movement in Congress. In 1988 he was among the founders of the Social Democratic Brazilian Party (SDBP). He served as the President of the Parliamentary Commission for Territory Administration, Local Power and Environment from 1985 to 1988.

Mr. Cardoso was the opposition leader for the SDBP in the Senate from 1990-1991 and in 1992 was named Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Itamar Franco administration. From 1993-1994 he served as Minister of Finance and was credited with successfully controlling inflation and turning the troubled Brazilian economy around through his Plan Real.

In 1995, Mr. Cardoso was elected President of Brazil. He was reelected in 1998 and served until 2003. During his time in office, he reduced government involvement in the economy and attracted foreign investment to Brazil. He was honored with the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation in 2000.

Trained as a sociologist, Mr. Cardoso was a longtime professor at the University of São Paulo before his entry into politics. He has also taught at numerous universities around the world including the Collège de France, the University of Paris, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Cambridge.

As a public intellectual, Mr. Cardoso’s academic life and political engagement focused on the core causes of promoting democracy and breaking the chains of dependence that hinder economic and social development. Starting in the 1960s, he wrote frequently in the most important Brazilian newspapers and periodicals, and was a weekly columnist of Folha de S. Paulo during the 1980s. In January 2003, he began a monthly column in O Globo (Rio de Janeiro), O Estado de S.Paulo (São Paulo) and Zero Hora (Porto Alegre).

Mr. Cardoso’s most recent areas of concern are the challenges of democratizing globalization and building a more just and equitable international order. He is currently president of the Instituto Fernando Henrique Cardoso in São Paulo and honorary president of the Party of the Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB).

He also serves on the boards of numerous organizations in addition to the United Nations Foundation, including the Club of Madrid, of which he was chairman from 2003 to 2006; the Clinton Global Initiative; the Inter-American Dialogue; the World Resources Institute; and Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies, where he is also professor at large. Mr. Cardoso has served on the boards of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and he currently holds the “Cultures of the South” chair at the Library of Congress in Washington.

Mr. Cardoso, who is fluent in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish, was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1931 and holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees in sociology, all from the University of São Paulo. His wife, the late Ruth Cardoso, was a distinguished anthropologist and also a United Nations Foundation Board member; the couple has three children.