Mercedes García Pérez is the Head of Global Issues and Innovation at the Delegation of the European Union to the USA since 2019, in charge of climate, energy and environment, transportation, research and innovation and public health. Until 2018, she was the Head of Division for Human Rights in the European External Action Service – in charge of defining EU policies and guidelines and leading human rights dialogues - and, before that, the Head of Operations in the Civilian Planning and Conduct Capability (CPCC), where she oversaw the conduct of ten EU Civilian Operations in three continents with more than 3000 international staff on the ground. A lawyer by training, she practiced EU competition and trade law in Brussels from 1998 to 2002. She was member of the Academic Council and visiting scholar at the Institut Supérieur de Management Public et Politique in Paris until 2011. Ms. García Pérez is also a visual artist who has exhibited her work in Belgium and a Member of the Board of the Alliance for New Music Theater in Washington D.C. Ms. García Pérez holds an LLM in European Law from the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. She is also a graduate in Law and Spanish Literature from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain.