Diego Arroyo

Diego spent his twenties writing words for other people to say: ministers, executives, one memorable season a football club chairman. Speechwriting taught him two things that still run his desk. First, an argument you cannot say out loud in ninety seconds is usually hiding something. Second, the audience is never wrong about whether you respected them.

He grew up in Mexico City in a household where disagreeing well was the family sport, and he runs Meridian's opinion pages on that rule: the columns he publishes must state the strongest version of the other side before landing their own. His own essays circle institutions under strain, the changing deal between work and dignity, and the uses of history for people making decisions now.

He moved to the Gulf because, in his words from an early column, it is where the twenty-first century is being drafted rather than debated. He remains genuinely unsure whether that draft will be good, which is exactly why he finds it worth watching from close range.