Michel Quintana Izzo, a finance student at both Columbia University and Tecnológico de Monterrey, will travel to United Nations Headquarters in New York this April as a youth delegate for the 2026 UN Economic and Social Council Youth Forum. The Forum runs from 14th to 16th April and brings together young delegates, member state representatives, and institutional stakeholders for structured dialogue on sustainable development and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Quintana Izzo will represent both Columbia University and Mexico at the event — a dual mandate that reflects his cross-border academic profile. His background spans finance, leadership, and international affairs, with institutional roots in two countries and a declared focus on the intersection of business and global policy.
The 2026 ECOSOC Youth Forum carries the theme of advancing the 2030 Agenda through transformative, equitable, innovative, and coordinated action. For youth delegates, the Forum provides direct access to high-level conversations that ordinarily involve heads of government and senior UN officials. Selection as a delegate places Quintana Izzo among a cohort of young people chosen to contribute to those discussions rather than observe them.
“I am honored to have been chosen to represent Columbia University and my country, Mexico, at the 2026 United Nations ECOSOC Youth Forum,” Quintana Izzo said in a statement shared on LinkedIn. “I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to conversations about the future of sustainable development alongside young leaders from around the world.”
The ECOSOC Youth Forum, held annually at UN Headquarters in New York, functions as one of the organisation’s primary formal mechanisms for incorporating youth perspectives into its broader policy processes. Quintana Izzo’s selection adds to a pattern of young Mexican professionals gaining ground in international institutional spaces — a trend increasingly visible at multilateral forums where the next generation of policy voices is taking shape.
