Carlos Gutierrez

Country:	Costa Rica
Email:	carlos.raul.gutierrez[at]sutel.go.cr

Carlos Raúl Gutiérrez is the Chairman of Costa Rica's national regulator, SUTEL. It is a state owned enterprise that was created via 2008 legislation and opened in 2009. Carlos Gutiérrez was ratified by the Costa Rican legislature in December, 2008, for a 5 year term as a member of SUTEL; he became the Chairman in January, 2012, and joined ICANN's GAC as the Costa Rican representative in late 2011. The Chairmanship of SULATEL is subject to a one year term. He is a founding member of ISOC Costa Rica.

Mr. Gutiérrez is very involved in domestic and international regulation conferences and discussions. He has been involved in fora such as the World Conference on International Telecommunications, the ITU, ISOC's INET conferences, and others.

At SUTEL, Carlos has developed the implementation of its Universal Access Fund for Broadband Access to all Public Schools, a $170 MM project and the first of its kind, and also promoted FTTH deployment with public regional electricity distributors. He also led the organization through its first phase of structural and market implementation, and introduced the state enterprise into the larger competitive ICT market. Other issues the organization have been dealing with include number portability, reducing the digital divide, and governmental and market reviews.

Background

Carlos Raúl Gutiérrez began his involvement with ICANN as Costa Rica´s GAC Representative to the Senegal Meeting (ICANN42), and to subsequent meetings until January 2014. In 2011 he co-founded the ISOCs’ Costa Rica Chapter, which he chairs since 2014. The Costa Rica Chapter is an organizational member in both the NCSG and ALAC. During 2013 he was member of the second Accountability and Transparency Review Team under the Affirmation of Commitments (ATRT2).    He was confirmed in 2009 by the Costa Rican Parliament for a 5 year term as Commissioner for the newly created national regulatory agency SUTEL. This agency was created for the opening of the telecom market in Costa Rica, launching the first spectrum public auction which allowed two new wireless operators onto the market and opened direct international access for all ISPs. While at SUTEL, he was directly involved in the development of the Universal Service Fund for Costa Rica, endowed with the proceeds of the spectrum auction and further contributions from network operators. He chaired SUTEL in 2012, as well as the Latin American Association of Telecom Regulatory Agencies (REGULATEL) in 2013.     For the previous 2 decades, Carlos Raúl worked as consultant and executive for Swiss companies worldwide, with particular focus on energy. During the 2000s, he worked on emission reduction projects for the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol of the UNFCCC, where he got first-hand experience of Governments working jointly with Industry and Academia in the initial efforts to develop markets for greenhouse emission reductions. This early multi-stakeholder effort did not make progress at the time to deal with this important externality.   He earned his Master’s degree in Economics from the Hamburg University in 1983 (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Fellow) and his Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (Fulbright Fellow) in 1988. Carlos Raúl is the very proud father of 3 daughters and 2 sons, and holds dual Costa Rican and Swiss citizenship.

He believes in Geek Orthodox Internet Evangelism (after Vint Cerf).