AURORA PRIZE

Arturo Sarukhan was the ambassador of Mexico to the United States. He is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution and a visiting professor at the University of Southern California (USC).

 

 

Sarukhan was born in Mexico City, Mexico, although his family’s origins go back to the Russian Empire, where his paternal grandfather, Artur Sarukhanian, is from. His paternal grandmother fled the Genocide and arrived in Greece and then in Venice, Italy, where she met his grandfather. He is Armenian on his father’s side and Spanish and Catalan on his mother’s. 

 

 

Appointed as ambassador by President Felipe Calderon, Sarukhan was the chief diplomat from Mexico to his country’s top trading partner and neighbor. He was also the first ambassador in Washington, DC, to have a Twitter account (@arturo_sarukhan).

 

 

“In an era in which social media and public policy are increasingly converging, policymakers have to be smarter and faster.”

 

 

“He’s been a leader in his country’s political life and its foreign-policy establishment for more than a decade.” – Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institute 

 

“You could call Arturo Sarukhan a ‘pioneer of digital diplomacy’…” – Public Radio International