Carlos Torres has more than 40 years of experience in the international development sector — primarily in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. His areas of expertise include international business development, trade and investment promotion, and microbanking.
He began his career as a consultant at Arthur D. Little Inc., working on financial projects in more than 15 countries. From there he served as a contractor to USAID, supervising projects supporting private sector-led export growth in Costa Rica. In 1984, he founded CARANA Corporation, an international consulting firm focusing primarily on economic development. By the time he retired from CARANA 16 years later, the company had projects in more than 15 countries and a staff of about 200 employees and consultants.
In 2010, Torres joined the Peace Corps as leader of a team that conducted a comprehensive assessment of the agency’s operations. Upon completion of that project, he was appointed regional director of the Inter-America and the Pacific region, supervising 22 offices that supported about 2,600 volunteers in 26 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific. In 2013, he was named associate director for the Office of Global Operations, supervising the operations of the three geographic regions — Africa; Europe, Mediterranean and Asia; and Inter-America and the Pacific — that manage the Peace Corps’ volunteer operations. A year later, he was nominated to serve as deputy director of the Peace Corps, focusing on the agency’s day-to-day operations; he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2015 and served in that role until January 2017.
Torres received a master’s degree in management from the Arthur D. Little Management Education Institute and a bachelor’s degree in finance from Babson College.
Torres joined the FHI 360 board of directors in November 2021 and serves as its chair.