BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : DECEMBER 11, 2000 ISSUE
INTERNATIONAL -- LATIN AMERICAN BUSINESS Vicente Fox, Executive Headhunter (int'l edition) His Cabinet is loaded with business talent Holding a cordless microphone and cracking jokes as he fielded questions from journalists, Francisco Gil looked more like a talk-show host than Mexico's next Finance Secretary. ''I thought I was returning to government service, but I feel like I'm getting into show biz,'' quipped the 57-year-old economist, who has been giving nonstop interviews since being named to the Cabinet of incoming President Vicente Fox. And that's just how his new boss wants it. Fox, a maverick outsider who on Dec. 1 becomes the first opposition party politician to ascend to the Mexican presidency after 71 years of one-party rule, wants to make a splash with a series of bold gestures. The first was naming a Cabinet packed with experienced businesspeople--a novelty in Mexico, where for the past two decades choice Cabinet posts have gone to lifelong technocrats or career politicians. Fox, himself a former Coca-Cola Co. executive, is sending out a clear message: Mexico's government must be run as efficiently as a corporation. MOTLEY CREW. Analysts generally applauded Fox's diverse line-up, which includes business people, orthodox economists, and leftist academics. Yet Mexican economist Rogelio Ramirez de la O warns that this motley crew may harbor competing agendas. ''Without a unifying theme, everyone will end up doing whatever they think is best, and that won't be optimal,'' he says. At least Wall Street was reassured by Fox's choice of Gil for the finance post. ''Gil will solidify a tight grip on the economy,'' says Jorge O. Mariscal, Latin America equities strategist for Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York. Gil has spent the last three years running Avantel, a long-distance telephone carrier jointly owned by WorldCom and Banamex, a Mexican financial group. Before that he had a two-decade long career at Mexico's central bank and finance ministry. In the early 1990s, he was charged with revamping the national tax collection agency, boosting revenues by 1% of gross domestic product. Gil's knowledge of the byzantine tax system will be an asset to Fox, who has placed fiscal reform at the top of his agenda. FIXER-UPPER. Perhaps Fox's boldest move was to tap a private-sector executive to head the state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos--a first in Mexico. That's Raul Munoz, 61, a chemical engineer who has run DuPont's $1 billion Mexico operation for 12 years. Talk of privatizing Pemex is still taboo, but Munoz will be charged with overhauling its management and finances so that its performance measures up to that of the world's other leading oil companies. Hamstrung by bureaucratic red tape, a bloated workforce, and aging infrastructure, Pemex badly needs a reorganization. ''It's clear that energy issues have to be approached from a business perspective if there's to be meaningful change,'' says Eduardo Lopez, an analyst at Petroleum Finance Co., a Washington consulting firm. Further evidence of Fox's quest to make the state apparatus more efficient is his choice for Energy Secretary. That job goes to Ernesto Martens, 67, a veteran businessman who turned around several troubled Mexican companies during the 1990s, including glassmaker Vitro and Cintra, the holding company for Aeromexico and Mexicana airlines. His first assignment will be to drum up congressional support for controversial legislation to open Mexico's electricity industry to private investment. While Fox's Cabinet has a remarkable breadth of experience, it is thin on political skills. The task of selling the bold agenda for change to an opposition-dominated Congress will fall to Fox, a master politician. ''He's a great leader in terms of his capacity to convince,'' says de la O. Fox promises to be a hands-on chief executive: ''I'll be a President who's always in the street, getting things done,'' he says. That's what Mexicans are expecting from Fox--and his Cabinet. By Geri Smith, with Elisabeth Malkin, in Mexico City _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Vicente Fox, Executive Headhunter (int'l edition) TABLE: The Brain Trust INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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