Carlos Lage Davila

Name at birth: Carlos Lage Davila

Carlos Lage is the Vice President of the Council of State and the Secretary of the Council of Ministers for Cuba. Trained as a pediatrician, Dr. Lage has been active in communist party politics since he was a student in the 1970s. He rose steadily through the ranks of the party, and by the mid-1980s he was a member both of the Communist Party's Central Committee and of Fidel Castro's inner staff. During the 1990s Lage earned a reputation as the hard-working coordinator of economic reforms that helped bolster Cuba after the fall of the Soviet Union. He is credited with overseeing a favorable deal with Hugo Chavez for Venezuelan oil and is sometimes referred to as Cuba's "energy czar." When Castro required surgery in the summer of 2006, Dr. Lage joined Raul Castro as one of a select group of officials given provisional responsibilities while Fidel recovered. Lage is considered one of Castro's possible successors.