New School President Bob Kerrey engages in an informal discussion with Arturo Sarukhan, Mexican ambassador to the United States. They will explore U.S.-Mexican relations, U.S. policy toward Latin America, and other domestic and international issues of interest to both countries. 

Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan is a career diplomat. He served as deputy assistant secretary for inter-American affairs and in 1993 was posted to the Mexican Embassy in the United States, where he served first as chief of staff to the ambassador and then as head of the counternarcotics office. He became chief of policy planning at the Foreign Ministry in 2000 and was appointed Mexican consul general to New York City by the president in 2003. In 2006, he resigned his post and took a leave of absence from the Foreign Service to serve as foreign policy advisor and international spokesperson on Felipe Calderón’s presidential campaign. After Mr. Calderón’s victory, Ambassador Surakhan became coordinator for foreign affairs in the transition team. In November 2006, he received the rank of ambassador, and in February 2007, he was appointed Mexican ambassador to the United States. 

Before joining the Foreign Service, Ambassador Sarukhan served as executive director of the nongovernmental Bilateral Commission on the Future of United States-Mexican Relations. 

Ambassador Sarukhan is active in a number of organizations, including the Mexican Council on Foreign Affairs, the Foreign Policy Association, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He is a board member of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas and sits on the Ambassadors Advisory Board of the Executive Council on Diplomacy. He has taught at the university level and published articles on foreign policy issues in various journals and magazines. He has been decorated by the governments of Spain and Sweden.

Ambassador Sarukhan holds a BA in International Relations from El Colegio de México and an MA in American Foreign Policy from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at The Johns Hopkins University, which he attended as a Fulbright scholar and a Ford Foundation fellow.