He began his studies in Guatemala City, but due to the political situation of the country, his father went into exile in 1971 and the rest of the family moved to Costa Rica in 1975, where he finishes primary and secondary school.

He finishes his undergraduate studies as Bachelor at the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica in 1990, and then departs to England, to obtain his MPhil degree on Economics and Politics of Development at the University of Cambridge in 1992.

Between 1993 and 1994, he was the Research Director for the Latin American regional office of the International Cooperative Alliance, and he was a consultant in rural development programs in El Salvador and Nicaragua, for several European NGO's.

From 2008 through 2011 Carrera wrote a weekly op-ed in elPeriódico, a Guatemalan newspaper, and his editorials were also published by different media outlets in Central America, Spain and the United States.

[3] On September 8, 2014, President Otto Pérez announced that Fernando Carrera was being removed from his post as Foreign Affairs Minister, and transferred to the UN, where he served as the Guatemalan Ambassador at the Permanent Mission.