Last Thursday, July 30, the era of Ricardo Roa at the helm of Ecopetrol came to an end. After leading the company for more than three years, his departure occurred amid scandals, criminal investigations, and charges for influence peddling and violation of electoral limits.
In his farewell, Roa asked for “forgiveness” from the workers for the deterioration suffered by corporate governance and “deeply regretted” that personal situations had been in the spotlight, preventing the visibility of the “true achievements of the organization” during his tenure.
With the departure of Ricardo Roa and the beginning of the Abelardo De La Espriella administration, the path is opened to choose the new permanent president through a list provided by a headhunting firm. While this process is carried out, Juan Carlos Hurtado will continue as acting president after receiving the support of the new administration.
However, before deciding who will take the reins of the most important company in Colombia, Ecopetrol will undergo a reshuffle in its board of directors. For this, an extraordinary assembly is projected for early September to form a board aligned with the new government.
This reorganization will allow filling the vacancies left by Angela María Robledo, Tatiana Roa Avendaño, and Juan Gonzalo Castaño, as well as replacing the members close to the outgoing Gustavo Petro government who still remain on the board.
Among the new names stands out Jorge Mario Velásquez, former president of Grupo Argos, who was publicly nominated by the elected president, Abelardo De La Espriella, to join the oil company.
Currently, after Robledo’s resignation, the board is temporarily chaired by Luis Felipe Henao, representative of minority shareholders. However, the institutional custom is to place at the head a figure of full trust of the President of the Republic.
This restructuring will not only affect the presidency of the oil company but will also trigger a shake-up in the corporate vice presidencies to make way for a trusted team of the new administration.
As a first reflection of this transition, last Friday the departure of Bayron Triana was confirmed, a figure close to Ricardo Roa’s management who led the Vice Presidency of Energies for the Transition since August 2025.
Adding to this departure will be the resignation of Victoria Irene Sepúlveda on August 31, who was in charge of the Corporate Vice Presidency of Organizational Talent and was also part of the close circle of the former president of the company.
Likewise, Roa’s departure leaves key vacancies on the boards of subsidiaries where he had presence or held the presidency, such as ISA, Cenit, Cartagena Refinery, and Ecopetrol Brazil.
The usual practice dictates that the president of Ecopetrol heads these bodies along with several of his vice presidents. Therefore, in companies where the oil company owns 100 percent of the property, the formation of new boards will facilitate the arrival of executives aligned with the new administration.
With this control ensured by the parent company, the replacement of the majority or all of the subsidiary presidents is expected. The quickest changes are anticipated in strategic subsidiaries or those under scrutiny for alleged irregularities in contracting, such as Hocol and Cenit.
In the latter, it is worth remembering that during the Gustavo Petro government the change took time to materialize until May 2024, when Alexander Cadena was appointed, coming from the presidency of Ocensa. In contrast, other companies show greater continuity, such as the Cartagena Refinery, where Herman Galán has remained in charge since 2020.
On the other hand, movements are anticipated in ISA, where Olga Patricia Castaño Díaz (Vice President of Strategy) acts as interim after the Council of State annulled Jorge Carrillo’s election in February due to irregularities in the process.
Finally, the situation is different in subsidiaries with private participation, such as the Eastern Plains Pipeline (ODL) and Invercolsa, where private partners usually oppose politically motivated changes. A sign of this stability is Eduard Gironza, who has completed more than three years leading Invercolsa and has two decades of career at Ecopetrol.
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