Colombia Appoints Goldman’s Janna as Public Credit Director

(Updates with Janna’s biographical details in second paragraph.)

Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Colombian Finance Minister Mauricio Cardenas named Michel Janna of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., as the country’s new Director of Public Credit.

Janna, who has a doctorate in economics from Northwestern University in Illinois, was Goldman’s head of sovereign risk for the Americas, the Finance Ministry said today in an e-mailed statement.

He has also worked for Citibank in New York, and as a specialist on financial stability at Colombia’s central bank, according to the Finance Ministry.

Janna did not return a call requesting comment.

Departing Public Credit Director Maria Fernanda Suarez said in a phone interview today that she quit the Finance Ministry for “strictly personal reasons.”

Before joining the Finance Ministry, Suarez, 38, was Chief Investment Officer at AFP Porvenir, Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores SA’s pension fund. She has also worked in the fixed income departments of Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., ABN Amro Group SA and Banco Santander SA.

--Editors: Richard Jarvie, Robert Jameson