Cristina Gutierrez de Piñeres
MA Developmental Psychology
Executive Director of United Way Colombia
Bogota Colombia
Cristina is the Executive Director of Fundación United Way Colombia for over 4 years. She manages the overall functioning of the foundation, which has a national coverage, and local offices in four of the main regions of the country. The foundation is aimed at improving quality of education in Colombia, and works in partnership with more than 180 companies and the public sector.
Cristina is a psychologist from University of Maryland, with a master’s degree in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College, Colombia University, and a certificate in non-profit management from Georgetown University. Counts with 24 years of experience in non- profit organizations and health services settings, both, in Colombia and in the United States. Two of her most relevant jobs were: at UNICEF, where she worked in humanitarian affairs and child protection; and at Genesis Foundation, where she had the opportunity to ascend from being Representative for Colombia, Co- Director, and Executive Director. She also worked at the New York Presbyterian Hospital and Fundación Cardio Infantil as a clinical psychologist with extremely vulnerable children and families. Cristina has also served as an active board member for various international and national organizations, such as AFE (Asociación de Fundaciones Empresariales), Fundación Scarpetta Gnecco, AGCI Latam, and United Way Worldwide Board of Trustees.
Cristina is a visionary and creative person, highly oriented to results, with excellent management, leadership and communication skills, strategic vision, and structural ability to develop and execute plans of actions. Over the years, Cristina has developed important experience in the creation and supervision of working teams, strategies that promote organizational growth, and has a high capacity for consolidating new alliances with entities from the private and the public sector.
As a member of the United Way network, Cristina has been very active in working with other LatAm countries, and contributing to the global network.
Marleny Hernández, Public Accountant
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
Principal of Fundación Festival Art Un Sitio de Esperanza- Bogotá, Colombia
Marleny Hernàndez is at the heart of the initiative. Her humanitarian labor has been carried out for 18 years without remuneration, as an act of gratitude towards life and with the support of her family and motivated by the life experience she shared with her daughter Natali, a professional classical dancer who is the Art Director and one of the teachers at the Foundation, using the skills and experiences provided throughout her training in self-discipline, responsibility and commitment, ability to face and conquer bodily, emotional and social challenges in her adolescence and youth.
Thus did the desire arise to generate this opportunity for destitute children and youths to participate in a humanitarian social rescue labor (keeping them away from gangs, violence, delinquency and the abuses they would normally be exposed to in their leisure hours), as well as providing a way that would allow them to build a life project and a profession which, because of the high cost, would always remain beyond their means, opening the doors of the world and providing training to make them conscious and responsible for themselves, their environment and their nation.
This socialization, inclusion and professional training labor is called “A Seedbed of Hope” (“Un Semillero de Esperanza”).
They are in their nineth year of activity and 900 children have so far gone through this experience and they have become the leading classical ballet professional training school in Colombia with this particular profile and the only ones having provided children who formerly lived in vulnerable settings with the opportunity to rise from anonymity to the best public stages in Colombia and abroad.
