Banker to central bankers

EVEN before he turned 50, Agustin Carstens was a veteran at handling economic and financial crises, as a central banker and finance minister.

Two years after he started his career in 1980 at the Mexican central bank, Banco de Mexico, the country defaulted on its external debt, triggering Latin America's debt crisis, which was to last for the better part of a decade. In 1994, he was in the thick of what came to be called the "Tequila Crisis" set off by a massive devaluation of the Mexican peso, which brought the country's financial system to its knees. During the global financial crisis of 2008, which devastated the Mexican economy, Mr Carstens was again on the frontlines, as the country's finance minister - a job he described as the most difficult he has done. ("You have to tax people, you have to get used to saying no, and then you have to deal with political life.")

As central bank governor from 2010 to 2017, he guided the Mexican economy through collapses in oil prices and repeated plunges in the value of the peso - including during the 2016 US election campaign and after. In between, he served as deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the three years to October 2006. Through all the tumult he has had to deal with, Mr Carstens is reported to have never lost his cool or sense of decorum. MAS managing director Ravi Menon, who knows him well, has described him as "a gentleman, even by the high standards of central bankers".