Born in Tampico, Mexico, in 1950. He earned his degree in Economis in Leeds University, England. He also took post-graduate courses in Financial Management and International Relations. He started his career as a civil servant in 1968, as a financial analyst at the Federal Power Commission. In 1970, he was appointed Chief of Staff of Mexico City´s Deputy Mayor. He was subsequently named Chief of Staff of the Deputy CEO and later of the CEO of Mexico´s national development bank, Nafinsa.After his post-graduate studies, he went back to Nafinsa as head of the Department of Negotiations of Foreign Loans. In 1975, he worked briefly as Deputy Financial Manager of the Rural Development Fund. From 1976 to mid-1978, he served as Mexico´s Permanent Representative to the International Coffee Organization, based in London, England. From 1978 to 1992 he served in Mexico´s Treasury as Deputy Director of Public Debt; Director of Foreign Debt; General Director of Public Credit; and Deputy Secretary for International Affairs. In 1992, he was appointed President and CEO of Bancomext, Mexico´s export-import bank. In 1993 he was named President and CEO of Nafinsa, Mexico´s national development bank. In mid-1993, he was asked by presidential candidate Ernesto Zedillo to join his campaign as Secretary for International Affairs of Mexico´s ruling party, the PRI. On December 1st 1994, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs by President Ernesto Zedillo. On January 5, 1998, he was named as Minister of Finance and Public Credit in President Zedillo´s Cabinet, a job he held until the end of the Administration, on December 1st.2000. He has received numerous decorations from different countries for hicontribution to enhance Mexico´s role in the world. He has written extensively about international relations, economics, finance and debt issues.He has lectured and given speeches all over the world on these subjects and, more recently, on the subject of globalization. He has dealt extensively with commercial banks, investment banks, the IMF, the World Bank, the IDB and other international organizations, including, of course, the United Nations. He has been and continues to be a member of different working groups and commissions devoted to the analysis of the most challenging aspects of international finance and the effects of globlization. In 1999, he was named "Finance Minister of the Year" by Euromoney Magazine. In 2000, he was chosen as the Finance Minister of the world´s "Dream Cabinet" by World Link, the magazine edited by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He became the first Mexican Finance Minister in a whole generation to steer Mexico´s economy through a change of Administration without a concurrent economic crisis, but rather in a context of steady growth, lower inflation and lower deficits. Currently Secretary-General of the OECD.