Born in Rio de Janeiro, Jorio Dauster Magalhães e Silva entered the Brazilian diplomatic service in 1961 and in the following year participated in the United Nations conference which created the International Coffee Organization. In 1963 and 1964 he played a key role in the preparation of the I UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development). During his first posting abroad, as vice-consul inMontrealfrom 1965 to 1968, Dauster attended graduate courses in economics at theMcGillUniversity. InPrague, where he served as second secretary and Chargé d’Affaires, Dauster witnessed the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Back in Brazil, Dauster led the Department  of Information and Technology Transfer of the newly-created National Institute of Industrial Property from 1972 to 1974, negotiating the patent and know-how clauses of the contracts signed with the multinational companies which were establishing themselves inBrazilat that time. He also served as coordinator of the project for the modernization ofBrazil’s patent system, an important initiative funded by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and monitored by the World Industrial Property Organization (WIPO).

Returning to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1974, Dauster was responsible for all negotiations involving coffee, sugar and cocoa, at that time the mainstay ofBrazil’s export earnings. From 1979 to 1987 Dauster was posted at the Brazilian Embassy inLondon, where he continued to work on trade issues. During all these years he was the chairman of the producing countries group in the International Coffee Organization, leading the negotiations with importing countries for the implementation of the economic clauses (quotas, price ranges, etc.) of the agreement. In 1987, Dauster returned toBrazilto preside over the Brazilian Coffee Institute, a governmental body which had full control of this important sector of the economy. There he established the Funcafé (Coffee Fund), which still today finances all coffee activities in the country, and was able to reverse a steep decrease in domestic consumption by establishing a certification system concerning the purity of the product that has been in force to this date.

In 1990 Dauster became the chief negotiator ofBrazil’s  foreign debt, the first person to occupy this position. At that time,Brazil’s debt of well over US$100 billion was the largest of all developing countries and had not been served for the last three years. Through the Bank Advisory Committee where all creditors were represented, Dauster was able to bringBrazilout of the moratorium, negotiating the IDU (interest due & unpaid) bonds, resuming payments to creditors and thus establishing the basis for the final settlement of the debt question. Since that timeBrazilhas never had to go back to the negotiation table with international creditors and the public foreign debt became a thing of the past.

From 1991 to 1999 Dauster served inBrusselsas Ambassador to the European Union, where he played an active role in the complex political and commercial relationships betweenBraziland the EU. He also helped to launch the on-going negotiations between Mercosul and the EU.

In 1999 Dauster retired from the diplomatic service when invited to be the CEO of CVRD (Companhia Vale do Rio Doce), one of the three largest mining companies in the world. The company, which had been privatized in 1997, was going through a delicate period as the controlling shareholders were renegotiating their positions. Dauster was able to reorganize the administrative structure and resume the investment program. Of special importance, Dauster led the acquisition of extremely important iron ore reserves inBrazil(Socoimex, Samitri-Samarco, Ferteco and Caemi) which had become available at that time because of the doldrums in the mineral markets, but in the last few years have made CVRD’s value increase by leaps and bounds. In addition, among many other initiatives, Dauster enlarged CVRD’s role as a power producer by developing partnerships in the area of hydroelectric generation, initiated the exploration of copper reserves in the Amazon region, increased the production capacity of bauxite, alumina and aluminium, and reinforced the company’s position in the logistics sector by acquiring the Ferrovia Centro-Atlântica, a important railway system that reaches the hinterland of Brazil.

After leaving CVRD, Dauster has served as a consultant for a number of companies, including Rio Tinto in the mining sector and the Synergy Group, which is active in the areas of aviation, oil exploration and shipbuilding in Brazil and other Latin American countries. Dauster was part of the Synergy Group team that took Avianca, the Colombian national carrier, out of Chapter 11 and in a short period of time transformed it into a profitable company.

In 2005 Dauster became the Chairman of the Board of Brasil Ecodiesel, at the time a fledging company in the new sector of biodiesel with one single production facility and an annual production capacity of less than 50 million liters. After a successful IPO last year in which Dauster played a key role, Brasil Ecodiesel is now the largest producer of biodiesel in the country and one of the largest in the world. At the end of this year, Brasil Ecodiesel will have seven biodiesel plants (five are now in operation), with a total capacity of some 800 million liters a year. Brasil Ecodiesel shares are negotiated in Bovespa’s Novo Mercado and their value has increased by 20% since they started to be traded last November.

Dauster was also a member of the Executive Committee of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, an independent international organization with headquarters inRomethat aims at ensuring the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide. Among other activities, the trust is involved with the government of Norway in the establishment of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which will hold three million seeds and provide a safety back-up for existing gene bank collections.

Dauster is a renowned literary translator, having rendered into Portuguese, inter alia, the works of J. D. Salinger (“The Catcher in The Rye”, among others) and Vladimir Nabokov (“Lolita”, “Ada”, “Pale Fire”, “Pnin”, among others).