Pedro Pablo Kuczynski: Peru's new president an old Wall Street hand

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Peru's new president, says he will hit the ground running after a long career as a Wall Street banker that earned him the moniker "El Gringo." At 77 years old, Kuczynski could have ridden his beloved Harley-Davidson off into the sunset after a lifetime spent stringing together one impressive resume entry after another: World Bank economist, investment banker, a series of ministerial posts, and, for good measure, concert flautist. Instead, the man known as PPK threw his hat into a presidential race that no one expected him to win, fighting heavy favorite Keiko Fujimori into a photo finish that took five days to be decided. Fujimori, the daughter of jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori -- a divisive figure remembered for both his populism and his authoritarian streak -- was the front-runner for most of the campaign. But when the last votes from the remotest reaches of the Peruvian Amazon had been counted, Kuczynski came out on top, by less than a quarter of a percentage point. It was just the latest surprise from PPK, who won in part by undermining Peruvians' image of him as a rich, conservative outsider with a funny accent and pin-striped suits. Some in Peru poke fun at his American accent, which betrays the many years he has lived outside his native country. But Kuczynski lightened the baggage of his outsider status by donning a traditional multicolored woolly hat at rallies, playing folk music on the flute and trotting out his campaign mascot, a man-sized guinea pig -- a symbol of Peru. Competing against Fujimori's well-oiled election machine, he stressed his age and experience. "I'm old, but my noggin is still working," he said. - Globetrotting life - Kuczynski was born on October 3, 1938, to a German Jewish father who had fled Nazi Germany and a French-Swiss mother. His father, a doctor, was an officer in the German army in World War I but fled when Hitler came to power. In Peru he worked treating lepers in the Amazon jungle, where the young Kuczynski spent part of his childhood. He attended a prestigious private school in the capital, Lima, then was sent to school in northern England. Kuczynski studied piano and flute at London's Royal College of Music, according to his CV filed with the electoral authorities. He went on to graduate from Oxford and Princeton before working in Latin America for the World Bank. He says he was expelled from Peru in a military coup in the 1960s while serving as head of the state reserve bank. For years he lived in the United States, working for banks and other companies. In the 1980s he returned to Peru, and served in various ministerial posts over the following decades, including as economy minister. He has star-studded connections to go along with his life of globetrotting: Kuczynski is a cousin of Franco-Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard and his American wife, Nancy, is a cousin of the Hollywood actress Jessica Lange. - 'Big brain' - Ahead of the June 5 run-off election, one voter, Lima taxi driver Mario Armando Callupe, summed up Kuczynski's tricky image problem. "He's American," he said. "He doesn't speak great Spanish. That's what defines him." But the 27-year-old Callupe said he planned to vote for him anyway. "He is very well prepared for the job and he proved it when he was economy minister. He is a big brain." Kuczynski hails from the center-right, and vowed in his inaugural address to kick-start a slowing economy and revitalize the key mining sector. But he also promised sweeping reforms in health care, education and other basic services for the 22 percent of Peruvians living in poverty. Appearing to fight back tears as he took the oath of office, Kuczynski vowed to preside over a "social revolution." The septuagenarian president said he wanted to make his late father proud. "I can't defraud his legacy," he said.