José Luis serves as Senior Advisor on Global Food Systems for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). He is also a member of the team of experts that is developing the report on strengthening urban food systems for the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN). He has been a consultant on food systems for international organizations, such as the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Inter-American Development Bank.

José Luis served as Minister of Production (2020-2021) and Vice Minister of Micro and Small Enterprises and Industry (2009-2010) of the Republic of Peru. From 2012 to 2020, he was Executive Director of Ethos, a Mexican think tank that promotes development and sustainable food systems.

The prestigious Peruvian weekly Semana Económica named him one of the 25 people under age 45 likely to change the country’s economy. He has lectured in various universities and has contributed to magazines and newspapers such as Project Syndicate, Letras Libres, PODER, América Economía and Animal Político. In 2023, he was the Guest Editor of a special issue on Foreign Affairs Latin America on food and power. José Luis is a Bellagio Resident in 2024 working on a project on biodiversity and food. He was a Maurice R. Greenberg Word Fellow at Yale University in 2017 and a Draper Hills Summer Fellow at Stanford University in 2018.

At THE NEW INSTITUTE, José Luis is involved as Chair of the program The Future of Food: Power and Biodiversity in the Academic Year 2024/25.