[1] The second of three children of socialite Edith Gay and conservative politician Álvaro Alsogaray,[2] she was born in Buenos Aires and earned a degree in engineering at the Catholic University of Argentina in 1969.

[7] Alsogaray was appointed Secretary of Natural Resources and Sustainable Development (environment) in November 1991,[8] something she attributed in a Clarín interview at the time to the "trust the President has deposited in me.

"[9] Her own position within the right-wing UCeDé, at the helm of which she succeeded her father in 1994, became jeopardized by a rivalry with the party's second-ranking figure, National Mortgage Bank Director Adelina D'Alessio de Viola.

These included bid rigging for the refurbishment of the Haedo Palace (the headquarters of the secretariat);[5] her handling of a serious, 1996 forest fire in the vicinity of Nahuel Huapi National Park; a 1999 flood in the humid northeast region; and, particularly, of a 1993 plan to decontaminate the Riachuelo (a heavily polluted waterway along Buenos Aires' industrial southside).

[13][14] Upon stepping down when President Menem left office in 1999, financial transactions in her name totaling over US$200 million came under scrutiny, and Alsogaray was ultimately convicted of misappropriation of public funds in 2004.