Alberto J. Pani

Alberto José Pani Arteaga (12 June 1878 – 25 August 1955) was a prominent politician, Mexican civil engineer, and expert in economic policy, who during the post-revolutionary period held various important positions.

After Madero’s overthrow in February 1913, he opposed the dictatorship of Victoriano Huerta, and offered his services to the Constitutionalist faction headed by Venustiano Carranza, which subsequently was victorious in 1915.

[2] In 1917 when Carranza was elected president of Mexico, he appointed Pani as head of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Labor, and then sent to France as a special envoy during the peace talks resulting in the Treaty of Versailles in 1918.

Under Pani, Mexico imposed an income tax, cut salaries of civil servants, and streamlined government by abolishing departments in various ministries.

[4] Pani left the post of Secretary of the Treasury in 1927 and returned to Europe, where he was minister plenipotentiary in France, then Mexican Ambassador to the Spanish Republic.