Ms. Heidi Suzanne Cruz

Board Member, The North American Institute

Heidi Cruz is an investment banker in Merrill Lynch’s Global Energy and Power Group in Houston, Texas. In that capacity, she advises oil and gas companies on financial strategies, debt and equity issuances, and mergers and acquisitions.

Prior to joining Merrill, Ms. Cruz served in the Bush Administration in various positions. Most recently, she was the Economic Director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council where she was the principal coordinator for the U.S. policy effort for the 2004 Special Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico. Prior to her position in the White House, Ms. Cruz served as the Director of the Office of Latin America and the Caribbean and Senior Advisor to Treasury Undersecretary John B. Taylor at the United States Treasury Department. From February 2001 to September 2002, Ms. Cruz served as Special Assistant to Ambassador Robert B. Zoellick, United States Trade Representative. From January to November 2000, Ms. Cruz was a member of President Bush’s Economic Policy team, in Austin, Texas. In addition, she was a principal author of W Stands for Women, a campaign book outlining the President’s policy issues most directly affecting women.

Before joining the Bush campaign in 2000, Ms. Cruz was an investment banker with J.P. Morgan in New York City, working on advisory assignments in Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil, as well as advising on the privatization of a major state-owned company in Mexico.

Ms. Cruz currently serves on the Board of Advisors of CREO, a national foundation promoting school choice and working to expand educational opportunities for Hispanic children; on the Board of Directors of Living Water, a Christian charity organization providing clean water and sanitation equipment in the developing world; and as a Member of the North American Task Force for the Council on Foreign Relations. Publications include a book chapter entitled “Expanding Opportunity Through Free Trade,” in Thank You, President Bush (2004). In 1998, she authored a book chapter in Exchange Rate Policies for Emerging Market Economies, published by Westview Press, and in 2000, a Harvard Case Study, “American International Group.”

Ms. Cruz received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and a Masters of European Business from Universite Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, Belgium. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Claremont McKenna College.