Alejandra Palacios

Ms. Palacios is a Senior Fellow at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California (USC) and a USC Marshall Initiative on Digital Competition affiliate. She is the former Chair of Mexico’s Federal Economic Competition Commission (COFECE).

With more than 15 years of experience as a public policy expert and ministry-level government official, Ms. Palacios has proposed and advanced regulatory solutions in several Mexico-based markets, including the opening of the country’s telecom, airline, financial, energy, transport, and health sectors.

Ms. Palacios was the first woman to preside over COFECE. During her eight years as Chair, from 2013 to September 2021, the agency handled several unprecedented antitrust cases for legacy industries. Throughout her tenure, she also served as Vice President of the International Competition Network, which comprises 140 competition authorities from around the world, and as a board member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD’s) Competition Committee.

Prior to leading COFECE, Ms. Palacios served as Deputy Director of Economic Regulation Research at the Mexican Institute of Competitiveness and as a Lecturer in the economics department at Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM).

Ms. Palacios is a member of the Trilateral Commission and the Mexican chapter of the International Women’s Forum (IWF).