Speakers - Future Education Conference 2027

Francisco Marmolejo is a higher education leader, educator, and global strategist working for more than four decades towards advancing innovation, internationalization, and institutional transformation. During 2020-26, he has served as Higher Education President at Qatar Foundation (QF) in Doha, leading QF’s work in support of 8 prestigious universities established at Education City in Doha offering more than 70 academic programs to students from more than 110 countries. Previously, during 2012-20, he worked at the World Bank, where he served as the Global Coordinator of Higher Education, based in Washington, DC., and later as Lead Higher Education Specialist for India and South Asia, based in New Delhi. As part of his activities at the World Bank, he coordinated the internal thematic group on higher education, which helps to facilitate the exchange of ideas among the more than 100 Bank’s staff members and consultants involved in higher education initiatives across the globe.

During 1995-2012, he served as founding Executive Director of the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration, a network of more than 160 colleges and universities primarily from Mexico, Canada, and the U.S based at the University of Arizona, where he also worked as Assistant Vice President for Western Hemispheric Programs, Affiliated Researcher at the Center for the Study of Higher Education, and Affiliate Faculty at the Center for Latin American Studies.

Previously, he has been American Council on Education Fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Academic Vice President of the University of the Americas in Mexico, and International Consultant at OECD in Paris. He has served on the Board of Directors of different organizations including NAFSA and World Education Services.

Currently, he is member of the Academic Board of the Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation (CHEI) at UNICATT in Italy, and of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Internationalisation of Higher Education – Policy and Practice. He is Senior Fellow of NAFSA and Founding Scholar of CHEI-UNICATT. He has received six honorary doctorate degrees from universities in Latin America including his Alma Mater, the University of San Luis Potosi.