Economist Iván Heyn, who was found dead in his hotel room in Uruguay today, had been appointed as Trade undersecretary on December 10th and also was the head of Corporación Puerto Madero.
Heyn, who turned 34 on November 29th, was the president of the Corporación Antiguo Puerto Madero, a state-run organization which carries out development plans in the City neighbourhood of Puerto Madero.
He was also appointed as the State’s director in the company Aluar, representing shareholder Anses. Previously, Heyn spent five years in different posts in the public administration. He was the macroeconomic and sectorial studies manager in the Investment and Foreign Trade bank (BICE) between January 2009 and January 2011, Industry undersecretary between May 2008 and January 2009, an adviser to the Economy Ministry between April 2006 and the same month of 2008.
Heyn had a degree in economics from the UBA Buenos Aires University and a Master in Development and Industrial Policies from the General Sarmiento National University.
Heyn was also the first president of the FUBA University Federation of Buenos Aires after the downfall of student association Franja Morada. He was sworn-in in December 27th 2011, amidst the economic and political crisis brought by the downfall of Fernando de la Rúa’s government, and was backed by a leftist and independent student coalition.
The Trade undersecretary was also a high profile member of La Cámpora, the pro-government political group led by Máximo Kirchner. He joined the Kirchnerite ranks in 2002 after he ended his term as FUBA president.
Two years earlier, he was a member of TNT, Tontos pero no tanto (Foolish but no too foolish), an independent university association founded by current Economy vice-minister Axel Kiciloff, which defeated the Radical Party’s Franja Morada in the Economy Faculty Student Center elections.
“We are soldiers in this process and we don’t ask places for ourselves, but do ask that doors are opened for us and that you allow us to participate,” he said the time.
The late government official was a City lawmaker candidate in the July 2011 elections in the list headed by Kirchnerite Juan Cabandié, although he was on spot number 25 and thus a “testimonial candidate.”
Heyn used to say he was a Kirchnerite-Peronist, with strong national and popular ideologies in a political level and as an «heterodox» economist. In light of his self-described economic beliefs, he was member of the Economy Association for Argentine development, headed by Matías Kulfas, current president of the Nación bank. He led an intense intellectual activity and wrote several papers in which he tried to give a political and theoretical background to the Kirchnerite social and economic model.
In his last Twitter post, on October 29th, Heyn recommended an article of Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman on the European economic crisis, which was published in La Nación newspaper.
buenosairesherald.com