Juan Pablo Salazar is originally from Bogota, Colombia and for 14 years he has been a global and passionate activist for the Paralympic Movement and Rights for Persons with disabilities.

He joined the National Disability Council (CND) as a President in 2015. He has been working with this Council and in the Presidency of Colombia as an Advisor for the President, articulating the System and the National Public Disability Policy. Proceeding to joining CND, he was Founder and President of Arcangeles Foundation, an NGO that provides rehabilitation, psychosocial support, vocational training and economic opportunity to people with disabilities. He is particularly well known for an initiative that persuades security companies to hire guards with disabilities. That initiative is now being implemented in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico. In 2011, Juan Pablo devised the Lend Your Leg Campaign (Remangate), to raise awareness about the problem of landmines, which it was an internationally awarded campaign.

From 2013 to 2015, Juan Pablo was the President of the Colombian Paralympic Committee (CPC). As former President of the CPC, he led a period of success for Paralympic sport. Colombia went from having 2 medals in London to 17 medals in Rio, an increase of 800% in Colombia’s participation. In addition, under his direction, the CPC also launched a campaign to create awareness on the Colombian Paralympic team and successfully secured numerous athletic sponsorships from multinational companies.

Juan Pablo has received the Henry Viscardi Achievement Award (2016), the Civic Leaders of the Americas Award of the Trust for the Americas Foundation (2014), and the Peace & Sport Award for the Sports Event for Peace of the Year: Rumble in Cartagena (2010).

Juan Pablo has a B.A. in Advertisement and had participated on different academic programs such as: Leadership Development and Strategic perspective in management nonprofit organization at Harvard Business School and Government Program at Universidad de los Andes.