Renato Prado Guimarães

Renato Prado Guimarães began as a journalist while studying law at the University of São Paulo. Entering diplomatic training in 1963, he developed a specialty in export promotion. He worked in Brussels and Bogotá, taught export promotion at the Rio Branco Institute, and directed the ministry’s commercial promotion programs. From 1980 to 1983 he ran Brazil’s trade office in New York, then moved to Washington as minister-counselor and served there as chargé d’affaires. ¹

Guimarães subsequently became the foreign ministry’s spokesman and the foreign minister’s chief of staff. He headed embassies in Venezuela, Uruguay, and Australia, with concurrent responsibilities in New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, and established the ministry’s São Paulo representative office in 1998. His later consular assignments took him to Frankfurt and Tokyo. After retiring in 2008 he returned to literary work, publishing Crônicas do Inesperado and, later, Vou-me embora para Colina. ^{1, 2}