José Manuel Restrepo was appointed finance minister of Colombia by President Iván Duque in May 2021. Prior to that, he'd served as minister of trade, industry, and tourism since August 2018. Restrepo is an economist and specialist in finance at the Universidad del Rosario, with a master’s in economics from the London School of Economics. He is also a specialist in higher management from the INALDE and received a PhD in management of higher education institutions from the University of Bath.

Previously, he was president of the Universidad del Rosario and the College of Advanced Studies in Administration (CESA, where he also was professor of macroeconomics, microeconomics, introduction to the economy and planning and management control. He’s also served as the dean of the Business Foundation of the Chamber of Commerce of Bogotá. He was the financial planning and budget manager of Fonade, as well. He belonged to the Institutional Room of the National Council for the Quality Assurance of Higher Education of the Ministry of National Education. He has also served as a business consultant and an advisor on quality issues and accreditation of higher education institutions.

He is the author of an important number of writings among which are books, meritorious dissertations, research drafts and academic articles published in the national and international field. He has been a columnist for the newspapers El Nuevo Siglo and El Espectador.