Mr. Plata would later on settle in the United States and cofound his own company in Silicon Valley, along with three other Harvard Business School MBA graduates.

In 2001 he returned to Colombia and became the executive director and Legal Representative of the campaign that would lead President Álvaro Uribe Vélez to his first term in office.

In 2002, he was appointed President of Proexport, a position he held until January  2007, when he became Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism (2007 - 2010).

In March 2020, in the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Iván Duque Márquez appointed Mr. Plata as Covid – 19 Manager.

Despite the critical and challenging situation Colombia and the world were experiencing, Mr. Plata doubled the UCIs capacity in record time, created the National Strategic Reserve of Personal Health Protection Elements and designed the Testing, Tracking and Isolating Strategy (PRASS in Spanish), which skyrocketed the country's testing capacity, and smoothed the infected persons identification and quarantine.