As the Secretary General of OPEC, Rene Ortiz coordinated and unified the petroleum policies of its member countries to ensure the stabilization of oil markets between 1979 and 1981. Ortiz brought his decades of prior experience to the role with him, from being Marketing Head at the Ecuadorian State Petroleum Corporation to being Chief Adviser to the Minister of Natural and Energy Resources and Head Coordinator of the Petroleum Policy Advisory Board. While the Permanent Ecuadorian Representative at the OPEC Economic Commission Board, Ortiz was the Ecuadorian Delegation Member at numerous OPEC Ministerial Conferences.

Ortiz was educated at the National Polytechnic School, the University of Miami, and the Harvard Graduate School of Business.