Rodrigo Maia

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Speaker Rodrigo Maia is in his third term as president of the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil (equivalent to the Speaker of the House in the United States), having first been elected to the position by his peers in July 2016.

Maia began his political career as Secretary of the Municipal Government for the city of Rio de Janeiro (1997-1998): at just 26 years old, he was the youngest person to ever hold that position. As secretary, he created the Special Secretariat for Labor and a Citizenship Project, intended to serve disadvantaged families.  After two years in the municipal government, he was elected to the Federal Chamber of Deputies in 1998. Maia was elected vice-leader in the Chamber of his political party PFL in 2003, and leader in 2005; in 2007, Maia led an effort to modernize the party’s structure and platform, and became national president of the newly-renamed Democratas party (DEM). In 2015, he was chairman and rapporteur of the Political Reform proposal and a member of the Special Committee that analyzed the extension of the Union's Unbundling of Revenues (DRU). He also participated in the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry (CPI) of the Post Office, the Joint CPI of Petrobras, and the Special Committee on Impeachment. Maia became President of the Chamber of Deputies in July 2016 in a special election following the resignation of the previous President of the Chamber. He was reelected to a second term in 2017, and to a third term in 2019. Maia is part of a younger generation of Brazilian politicians, who came of age after the transition to democracy in 1985. As a member of Congress, Maia has focused on labor issues and sanitation, and securing support for education and health services in Rio de Janeiro. More recently, he has become a leading voice for the government’s economic reform agenda. As head of the Lower House, Maia is prioritizing fiscal adjustment measures, which will help Brazil overcome its economic crisis, with emphasis on labor and social security reforms. He also advocates drafting a new federative pact, to ease the debts of states and municipalities.  For the last fifteen years, a survey conducted by DIAP (Interunion Parliamentary Advisory Department) has recognized Maia as one of the top 100 most influential parliamentarians in Brazil.  Before turning to politics, Congressman Maia worked for Banco BMG and Banco Icatu. He was born in Chile in 1970, the son of exiled Rio de Janeiro Mayor Cesar Maia. Maia is married and has five children.