Alberto Arenas

Alberto Arenas de Mesa (born 5 October 1965) is a Chilean economist, academic, and Socialist politician. He was Chile's Minister of Finance, under the second government of President Michelle Bachelet (2014–2015).

As a close collaborator of former president Bachelet, he served as Head of Budget during her first administration (2006–2010), as policy chief for her campaign in the 2013 Chilean presidential election, and as Minister of Finance during her second administration, a position he held from March 2014 to May 2015.

He was a part of the team of academics who published a paper on the Chilean Pension Reform, in August 2006.

Family and education Arenas was born on 5 October 1965, the son of architect and Communist activist Mario Alberto Arenas Pizarro and Mónica Eliana de Mesa. His paternal aunt, Adriana Arenas Pizarro, was married to French sociologist Alain Touraine.

He completed his primary education at the Liceo Experimental Manuel de Salas in Santiago. In 1983, shortly before graduating from secondary school, he joined the Communist Youth of Chile (JJCC), influenced by his father's political involvement. with a dissertation entitled Learning from the Privatization of Chile's Social Security Pension System: Macroeconomic Effects, Lessons, and Challenges.

Upon returning to Chile in 1997, he was appointed head of the Studies Department of the Budget Office, During this period, the Comptroller General's Office reported a number of irregularities within the company.

From 2010 to 2013, he served on the board of directors of Canal 13. At the same time, he worked as a researcher at the Microdata Center of the Department of Economics at the University of Chile.

He has also taught in the master's programme in economics jointly offered by Ilades/Georgetown University and the Alberto Hurtado University.