A Guatemalan businessman educated in the United States, Ayau had discovered neoliberalism at the Foundation for Economic Education, and in 1959 he established the first neoliberal think tank in Latin America, the Centro de Estudios Economico-Sociales, in Guatemala City (Weston 2001). He became a member of the Mont Pèlerin Society in 1964 and in 1978–1980 served as president.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 1944