The Chilean government has appointed Claudio Báez as the new national director of the fisheries and aquaculture service, Sernapesca.
Báez, a veterinarian, will assume the new position on 1 July. To date, he has served as the regional director of Sernapesca Biobío, and as a professor at Universidad San Sebastián’s School of Veterinary Medicine, as well as in the Biobío regional health ministry.
The incoming director said that he hoped to offer “a different management style” with “more fluid internal communication” for the more than 1,200 people that work at Sernapesca, and that his management focus will be to strengthen the already established institutional regulations.
"From my experience as regional director I am convinced that we can make adjustments, but in general terms, the focus will continue to be on risk controls, promoting regulatory compliance, engagement with our users and continuing to advance institutional modernization,” he said in press release. “In addition, we must take into consideration that we continue in a pandemic, in a year of uncertainty, where we must reconcile in-person and hybrid work with biosafety protocols, and also coordinate with colleagues who are teleworking.”
Báez replaces Jessica Fuentes, who at the beginning of the year was appointed as acting national director of Sernapesca, stepping up from her position as deputy legal director at the same government entity.
Fuentes was to hold the position of acting director until the government formally designated a new director. She replaced Alicia Gallardo, who was appointed as the new undersecretary of fisheries and aquaculture for a regulatory agency known as Subpesca. Gallardo has been the first woman to hold that position in the nearly 45 years of the department’s existence, and she has said that she will focus on sector sustainability.
Photo courtesy of Sernapesca
