FACTBOX-Likely key figures in Mexico's new government

MEXICO CITY, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Mexican President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto, who takes office on Saturday , is likely to appoint a mix of technocrats and career politicians to his cabinet. Here are some of the people expected to form the backbone of his government:

LUIS VIDEGARAY

Videgaray is Pena Nieto's right-hand man and combines blue-chip academic qualifications with experience in the private sector, local government and Congress. He is expected to be either finance minister or a chief of staff-style figure with oversight of all government policies.

He studied law and economics in Mexico alongside current Finance Minister Jose Antonio Meade. He then worked briefly at the finance ministry under Pedro Aspe before winning a scholarship to study at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.

On his return, he worked for seven years at Aspe's investment bank, Protego, when he met Pena Nieto - then a young congressman from the State of Mexico - during talks on a debt restructuring.

When Pena Nieto was elected governor of the State of Mexico in 2005, he named Videgaray as his finance minister, a post he held until 2009 when he became a federal congressman and led the lower house's budget committee.

Videgaray, 44, ran the campaign for the current State of Mexico governor, then took charge of Pena Nieto's presidential campaign.

EMILIO LOZOYA

A close Pena Nieto aide, 37-year-old Lozoya is seen as a possible pick for foreign minister or possibly as head of state oil monopoly Pemex. The vice-coordinator for international affairs of Pena Nieto's transition team, Lozoya has degrees in both law and economics, and received a masters in economic development from Harvard.

Before joining Pena Nieto's presidential campaign team, Lozoya, who has lived in Manhattan, founded an investment fund in 2009. It has more than $1 billion in assets under management.

Prior to that Lozoya, who has never held public office but worked as an analyst in the central bank's international reserves and foreign exchange department in his 20s, was director and head of Latin America at the World Economic Forum.

JOSE ANTONIO MEADE

Meade, 43, built his career in Mexico's finance ministry and served as both energy minister and finance minister under outgoing President Felipe Calderon. He is viewed as a contender for either of those portfolios.

Meade is a member of the cadre of technocrats who rebuilt the finance ministry and central bank following Mexico's devastating Tequila Crisis in 1994-1995, contributing to the country's current reputation as a model of prudent management.

He holds a doctorate in economics from Yale University and is the son of a politician from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which reclaimed the presidency this year after 12 years of rule by the conservative National Action Party.

Meade previously served as deputy finance minister as well as in the posts of deputy minister of revenues and deputy minister for banks and savings.

ILDEFONSO GUAJARDO

An economist who cut his teeth in federal government in the foreign ministry under President Ernesto Zedillo in the 1990s, Guajardo is one of the most reform-minded politicians from the party's older generation.

Twice serving as a federal congressman, the native of the northern industrial state of Nuevo Leon chaired the economics committee in the last lower house of Congress. He was not part of Pena Nieto's inner circle until his election campaign.

Guajardo, who studied in Pennsylvania and Arizona, helped oversee Mexico's adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from Washington in 1994 and previously worked at the International Monetary Fund as an expert on Brazil.

Serving as Pena Nieto's coordinator for the business community during the election campaign, Guajardo, 55, has called inefficiency in public spending one of Mexico's main weaknesses and is a strong believer in fostering greater competition in key industries.

IGNACIO PERALTA

An example of the younger generation of PRI officials keen to break with the corruption and mismanagement that dogged Mexico's past, Peralta has built a reputation as one of the country's most effective up-and-coming technocrats.

Elected mayor of the western city of Colima in 2009, he clashed with tycoon Carlos Slim's fixed line phone giant Telmex over use of public space for phone booths. Peralta, 42, said it should pay for the right, while Telmex argued it was doing a public service. In October, a court ruled in Colima's favor.

Establishing himself in the 1990s as a currency expert at the central bank during the early years of its independence, Peralta is close to Videgaray, with whom he studied economics at Mexico's private ITAM university.

His education also included a master's degree at the University of Essex in England.

JORGE CARLOS RAMIREZ

A lawyer, Ramirez was the vice-coordinator of the PRI's presidential campaign and No. 2 in the security and justice section of Pena Nieto's transition team.

Prior to September 2010, when he was named as president of the lower house of Congress for a year, he occupied party posts and was a local deputy in his native state of Yucatan, in Mexico's southeast.

Ramirez, 51, is close to former PRI party president Beatriz Paredes and he ran for governor of Yucatan in 2011.

JESUS MURILLO

A lawyer, lawmaker and former Hidalgo state governor, Murillo is seen as a possible pick for attorney general, a key post in the bid to tame violence linked to drug trafficking.

Regarded as a member of the PRI's old guard, Murillo, 64, has held a host of party jobs and is currently speaker of the lower house of Congress.

Murillo defended Pena Nieto's presidential election triumph in Mexico's electoral tribunal against accusations of campaign irregularities leveled by the main leftist challenger.

MIGUEL ANGEL OSORIO CHONG

A former state governor like Pena Nieto, Osorio Chong is seen as one of the next government's strongmen, and is tipped to be named interior minister.

Osorio, 48, governed the central state of Hidalgo from 2005-2011, and Pena Nieto named him to the trusted post of political dialogue coordinator during his election campaign and government transition period.

He is considered a strong negotiator and problem solver, though critics say he was sensitive to criticism during his time as governor and often locked horns with the media.

(Reporting by Mexico Newsroom; Editing by Kieran Murray and David Storey)