Entrepreneurs members of the Business Coordination Council (CCE) in Mexico have closed ranks around José Medina Mora, founder of the technology company Compusoluciones, who will be its president for the next three years. A few hours before the deadline for registering candidates to replace Francisco Cervantes, sources close to the process confirmed to EL PAÍS that members of the business organization opted for a single candidacy, despite the fact that other candidates such as Juan Cortina, former head of the National Council of Agriculture, or banker Julio Carranza had been taken into consideration in the previous weeks. The next head of the ECA will be a key element in the relationship between business and Claudia Sheinbaum’s government, against a backdrop of economic slowdown and global uncertainty.
On the path to succeeding Cervantes, the Mexican Business Council, made up of the country’s most important companies, tipped the balance in favor of Medina Mora, leaving Cortina, one of the most popular candidates in the business corridors, without a chance. People close to the process confirm that, given the challenges ahead for private enterprise, a single candidate has been chosen. The change of command will take place during the annual general meeting, in the second week of December.
Medina Mora, 70, is no stranger to the spotlight. From 2021 to 2024 he was president of the Confederation of Employers of the Mexican Republic (Coparmex). During his administration, parallel to the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, he was critical of the reform of the judicial system, changes within the National Electoral Institute (INE), the elimination and budget cuts of several autonomous organizations in the country, among other fronts.
A civil engineer by training, Medina Mora’s beginnings date back to the late 1970s at HP in the United States, before being transferred to the first HP plant in Guadalajara in the early 1980s, until in 1985 he decided to undertake his own technological project and thus Compusoluciones was born. Medina Mora has two master’s degrees from Stanford University, one in Engineering Science and the other in Business Administration, as well as a professional doctorate in Engineering Project Management, also from Stanford University.
The founder and president of Compusoluciones will succeed Cervantes with numerous open fronts: the global trade crisis triggered by the United States and the imminent revision of the USMCA have weakened the confidence of the business world. Behind closed doors, persistent insecurity, the closure of public investments and the lack of governance in some states are some of the issues that most concern the country’s capital.
The CCE is an organization that brings together more than 2,000 companies and associations, equal to 80% of Mexico’s GDP. One of the objectives of the CCE is to be a bridge between private initiative and the government, a relationship which had its most difficult moment in the previous six years. Now, under the presidency of Claudia Sheinbaum, the bridges between the two parties have been built again. Under the protection of Plan México – the six-year investment strategy – this Administration is committed to promoting mixed projects with the business community in the infrastructure and energy sectors.
