Biography
The son of Manuel Lavados, a small industrial entrepreneur who operated an iron foundry on the same property as his home, and Luisa Montes, a primary-school teacher who taught at School No. 6 in Talca, he studied—like his older brothers Jaime ―who later served as head of the University of Chile― and Iván (who directed the Inter-University Development Center for more than thirty years)—at the boys' high school in that city and later at the José Victorino Lastarria High School in Santiago.
He is an economist from the University of Chile and holds a master's degree from Boston University.
He served as Superintendent of Securities and Insurance from 1990 to 1994, and concurrently as a member of the Antitrust Resolution Commission. He later became general manager of Banco BHIF (1994–1998) and executive vice president of Habitacoop, a position he assumed in December 1998 while the cooperative was facing significant difficulties.
Lavados subsequently served as director of the state export-promotion agency ProChile until march 2006, when Ricardo Lagos' government ended
He was appointed Minister of Economy, Development and Reconstruction, at 2008 during M. Bachelet first government (Lavados is a member of the Christian Democratic Party of Chile, which at the time formed part of the governing coalition).
He left the ministry at the end of the administration in March 2010, shortly after the legal reform that created a dedicated institutional framework for the tourism sector.
At the beginning of 2013, he became chairman of the board of AFP Cuprum following its acquisition by Principal Financial Group. The following year, he was appointed rector of the San Sebastián University, a position he held until March 2018, when he was succeeded by Carlos Williamson.
As rector, he faced criticism over his connections with the governing coalition, which critics argued enabled him to act as a lobbyist in securing state funding.
Among his academic activities, he has served as a research professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Chile and has taught macroeconomics, microeconomics, economic development, and project evaluation in the university's economics program.
He was recognized as the outstanding academic of the Faculty of Administration and Economics at the University of Santiago, Chile in 1983.
He has also worked as a consultant for the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank in Peru, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Paraguay on securities-market reform and modernization.
On 25 May 2016, he joined the Board of Directors of Everis as an Independent Director.
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