Carlos Mladinic

Carlos Rodrigo Mladinic Alonso (born 25 October 1954) is a Chilean politician who served as minister of State. He was a political panelist and columnist at Radio Cooperativa.

Mladinic graduated with a degree in business administration (ingeniería comercial) from the University of Chile in 1976 and subsequently completed postgraduate coursework in macroeconomics, monetary policy, fiscal policy, and economic demography.

Mladinic has served as president of the Foundation for the Development of Magallanes, member of the Chilean–Argentine Binational Commission for Southern Integration, president of the Technical Cooperation Service (SERCOTEC), chairman of the EuroChile Foundation, and member of the board of Fundación Chile.

He has also served on the boards of several corporations, including Empresa Eléctrica Pilmaiquén, the National Coal Company of Chile (ENACAR), Arauco, and Aguas Andinas, Chile's largest water utility. While still a student, he joined the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) and later became the party's regional president in the Magallanes Region during the early 1980s.

During the military regime, he organized the first public protest against General Augusto Pinochet in Pinochet's presence, an event that became known as the Puntarenazo. As a result, he was sentenced to 541 days in prison.

That same year, he began his professional career at the consulting firm Gemines. After a brief period in the public sector, he continued his career in finance as regional manager of Banco Concepción (later Corpbanca). He later entered the healthcare sector as general manager of Clínica Imega in the Magallanes Province.

He is married to social worker Flor Draguicevic, with whom he has three children: Rodrigo, Vesna, and Nicolás. At the same time, he served as executive secretary of the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Support Program. During his tenure, CORFO developed its so-called "second-tier lending" programs, designed to provide Chilean banks with long-term financing for domestic businesses, as well as the Technological Innovation Fund (FONTEC).

In 1993, he joined Juan Villarzú in preparing the government program of presidential candidate Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, chairing its economic policy commission. In office, he was responsible for managing relations with agricultural producers who had strongly opposed Chile's association agreements with Mercosur and Canada, agreements that had been negotiated during his tenure at DIRECON.

During Frei's final cabinet reshuffle in mid-1999, Mladinic was appointed Minister Secretary-General of Government, while Edmundo Pérez Yoma became Minister of National Defense and Insulza was transferred to the Ministry General Secretariat of the Presidency.

Lagos and Bachelet administrations In 2001, Mladinic sought election to the Chamber of Deputies from Magallanes Province, but was defeated by his coalition running mate, Socialist candidate Pedro Muñoz Aburto. and chairman of the board of Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN) in 2004.

In 2007, President Michelle Bachelet appointed him manager of the Pro Inversión program at the Ministry of Finance. During the final year of Bachelet's administration, he returned to La Moneda Palace as chief of staff to the Minister of the Interior, serving until March 2010.

In April 2010, while serving as vice chairman of the board of the Santiago Metro, Mladinic was recruited by José Miguel Insulza, then Secretary General of the Organization of American States, to work at the organization's headquarters in Washington, D.C., where he served as secretary of the Inter-American Committee on Ports.