Natalia Bayona, current Executive Director of UN Tourism and the first person under 40 to reach this position, was distinguished as one of the 10 most influential Colombians residing in Spain and one of the most influential in Latin-America (Bloomberg). Natalia is also member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) network, and one of the 100 world leaders in innovation according to COTEC.

With an Executive MBA from the IE Business School, and a degree in International Relations from Universidad Externado de Colombia, Natalia Bayona was recognized with the Eisenhower Fellowship for her leadership and commitment to fostering a more prosperous and fairer world through her work in the tourism sector.

After an extensive career working for Colombia´s public sector, Natalia Bayona was Vice President of Spain Startup-South Summit; she then joined UN Tourism in 2018 and created the Innovation, Education, and Investment Department, where the Organization has undertaken ground-breaking initiatives that include more than 10 global entrepreneurship competitions, numerous national challenges, and over 20 innovation and technology forums.

These efforts have fostered the first Global Innovation Network comprising more than 10,000 start-ups from 100 countries, entrepreneurs, companies, public institutions, educational institutions, accelerators, and investors; this dynamic ecosystem has facilitated the acquisition of over US$214 million (as per Jan 2024) in financing for disruptive companies. Hence, the delivery of important technological results for the tourism industry

Furthermore, Natalia has been instrumental in establishing the first UN Tourism Online Academy to enhance opportunities in education for the tourism industry, boasting students from more than 150 countries and offering courses with scholarships available to students worldwide in partnership with some of the best universities in the world such as Les Roches, HSLU (Lucerne University of Applied Schiences and Arts), Basque Culinary Center, IE University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, or Sharjah University among others. In addition, she enjoys sharing her knowledge as lecturer in different universities including Harvard, Cornell and MIT,

Following her aspiration of generating investment opportunities for tourism, Natalia created the first Official UN Tourism Investment Guideline; she has worked alongside more than 50 countries on the construction of their Tourism Investment Strategies (including Dominican Republic, Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Chile among others) generating a concrete outlook that reflects their potential for international investors and the opportunities for diversification.