Ernesto Zedillo

This article is part of the Mining and Metals project of Spinwatch

This article is part of the EU Revolving Door project of SpinWatch.

Ernesto Zedillo is a former Mexican president (1994-2000) and an economist who sits on the boards of a number of companies and banks. He is currently Director of the Center for the Study of Globalization at Yale University and director of Citigroup and Alcoa.

Board memberships as of Feb 2012

• World Economic Forum
• Trilateral Commission
• International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations
• Group of 30
• Peterson Institute for International Economics
• Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group
• Club de Madrid
• Yale University, Center for the Study of Globalization Chair
• International Atomic Energy Agency 2007-8 chaired a Commission to recommend the future course of the IAEA
• International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament
• Trustee of the Fundacion Carolina, Madrid, Spain
• Citigroup since April 2010
• Alcoa since 2002 (Chairman of the Public Issues Committee and a member of the Audit Committees)
• Procter & Gamble Company since 2001
• Union Pacific Corporation from 2001 to 2006
• EDS (Electronic Data Systems) from 2007 to 2008
• ACE Limited
• Rolls Royce
• BP
• JPMorgan-Chase
• Credit Suisse Research Institute
• Global Development Network
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Development Advisory Panel.

Diplomatic positions

According to Yale University:

• Dr. Zedillo was appointed by Secretary General Kofi Annan to be the United Nations Special Envoy for the 2005 World Summit.
• Global Development Network Chairman of the Board
• Chaired World Bank's High Level Commission on Modernization of World Bank Group Governance in 2008.
• Sat on Commission on Growth and Development 2007-8, chaired by Nobel Laureate, Michael Spence. The Commission's final publication, The Growth Report: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development, was launched in May of 2008.
• Member of High Level Task Force on Climate Change organized by the Club de Madrid and the United Nations Foundation.
• co-chair of the Partnership for the Americas Commission with former US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering.
• co-chairs the US Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy along with former presidents Cesar Gavaria of Colombia and Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil.
• member of the High Level Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, co-chaired by Madeleine Albright and Hernando de Soto.
• member of the International Commission on Education for Sustainable Development Practice, co-chaired by Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and John McArthur, CEO and Executive Director, Millennium Promise.
• Co-Chaired the Commission on the Private Sector and Development with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Marti, which presented its report, Unleashing Entrepreneurship, in 2004.
• Chairman of the United Nations High Level Panel on Financing for Development in 2001.
• Chairs Global Trade and Financial Architecture at University of Yale co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Globalization and the U.K Department for International Development (DFID).
• Co-Coordinated the Task Force on Trade for the U.N. Millennium Project which launched its Report, Trade for Development, in January of 2005.

Mexican Politician and President

According to his Alcoa Directors profile:

Mr. Zedillo earned his Bachelor’s degree from the School of Economics of the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico and his M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. at Yale University. In Mexico, he taught economics at the National Polytechnic Institute and El Colegio de Mexico. From 1978-1987 he was with the central bank of Mexico where he served as deputy manager of economic research and deputy director. From 1983 to 1987, he was the founding General Director of the Trust Fund for the Coverage of Exchange Risks, a mechanism created to manage the rescheduling of the foreign debt of the country’s private sector that involved negotiations and complex financial operations with hundreds of firms and international banks. He served in the Federal Government of Mexico as Undersecretary of the Budget (1987-1988); as Secretary of Economic Programming and the Budget and board member of various state owned enterprises, including PEMEX, Mexico’s national oil company (1988-1992); and as Secretary of Education (1992-1993). He was elected President of Mexico in August of 1994; his term ran from December of 1994 to December of 2000.

Academic positions

• London School of Economics Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the in 2001
• Yale University since 2002, Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, Professor in the Field of International Economics and Politics; Professor of International and Area Studies; and Professor Adjunct of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Awards

Recieved the Sustainable Development Leadership Award, presented by R.K. Pachauri on behalf of the Energy Resources Institute (TERI) in New Delhi in 2006.

Publications

Edited and wrote introduction to The Future of Globalization: Explorations in Light of Recent Turbulence (Routledge, 2008).

Edited and wrote the introduction to Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto Brookings Institution Press and Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, 2008.

Resources

Yale University Profile Alcoa profile