Stanford Grad Ortiz: Veteran of Financial Crises

In naming Guillermo Ortiz to be Mexico’s finance minister, President Ernesto Zedillo appointed a friend, former colleague and, like himself, a U.S.-trained economist. But most important, given Mexico’s perilous economic state, he brought on a respected international player.

Ortiz, a native of Mexico City and son of an Army general, earned a doctorate in economics from Stanford University in 1977. For the next seven years, he was an economist at Mexico’s central bank, where he met Zedillo and gained experience in crisis management, helping the Miguel de la Madrid administration with the delicate process of rescheduling Mexico’s foreign debt.

From 1984 to 1988, Ortiz represented Mexico at the International Monetary Fund in Washington. By the time he left the IMF, he was executive director and had built a global reputation--while gathering the inside knowledge of the world financial community Zedillo is now counting on.

After leaving the IMF, Ortiz became the No. 2 man at the Mexican Finance Ministry under Pedro Aspe, another respected international player who was the architect of Mexico’s return to fiscal respectability during the Salinas de Gortari administration.

As a banking specialist, Ortiz oversaw the privatization of Mexico’s 18 commercial banks under Salinas and helped draft the banking chapter of the North American Free Trade Agreement. In the course of his career, he has written two books and published numerous articles on international economic themes.

The dismissal of Jaime Serra Puche as finance minister had been expected this week amid mounting criticism of his handling of the peso devaluation. The seeds of that crisis were sown long before Serra Puche and Zedillo took office Dec. 1, however. Mexico’s worsening trade imbalance and continued political unrest in Chiapas state, which unsettled foreign confidence, were factors beyond their control.