Antonio Vivanco Casamadrid, formerly chief aide to Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón, has taken over as director general of the state owned electric utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE).

Vivanco replaces Alfredo Elias Ayub, who has left the post after 12 years for health reasons.

Vivanco, who holds a BA in Economics from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and Masters in both Business Administration and Public Policy from Harvard University, has worked in both the private and public sectors. In his private sector he served as a consultant in strategic consulting firms and as manager of IT companies. In the public sector he has held positions in the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, SHCP) and the Federal Mortgage Society (Sociedad Hipotecaria Federal, SHF), and latterly has held the posts of technical secretary of the Cabinet and the Office of Infrastructure, after having joined then president-elect Calderón’s transition team in the area of public policy. In these positions he was involved in a series of key CFE infrastructure projects.

In taking over the position Vivanco committed himself to continuing to develop CFE as a motor of growth in Mexico and in particular to ensuring the completion in a timely fashion of infrastructure projects under the National Infrastructure Program, the continuing modernization of the electrical system in the central part of the country, and to stepping up the development and use of renewable energies.

At the naming ceremony President Calderón noted that one of the top achievements of CFE under Ayub's tenure was the bringing of electricity to more than 98 percent of Mexican households. Ayub also oversaw the incorporation by CFE of the other state power company Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LFC).