Sócrates Rizzo

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Rizzo and the second or maternal family name is García.

Sócrates Cuauhtémoc Rizzo García (born September 14, 1945 in Linares, Nuevo León) is a Mexican politician affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He is a former federal Congressman (1985–1989), mayor of Monterrey (1989–1991) and former governor of Nuevo León (1991 – 1996).

He graduated from the Autonomous University of Nuevo León in 1969 with a bachelor's degree in economics and received master's degrees in the same discipline at El Colegio de México and at the University of Chicago.

He worked several years at the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit and got elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1988. After briefly chairing the state branch of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in Nuevo León (1988) he was elected mayor of Monterrey. He left the post to run for governor of the state and after a clear victory over his closest opponent he took office in 1991. As governor, Rizzo built the second line of Metrorrey and the state's largest water reservoir. He resigned from the post on April 18, 1996 after several political scandals involving some of his closest cabinet members.

After his resignation, Rizzo worked as visitor at Harvard and Duke. He also researched municipal decentralization for the government of Honduras.

Further reading

• M. B. El-Hifnawi. 1998. Modeling the Determinants of Automobile Ownership in Developing Cities: The Case of Monterrey, Mexico. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Institute for International Development: Open Access Copy