Aspen Institute Launches The Aspen Economic Strategy Group

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Aspen Institute today will hold the inaugural meeting of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, a bipartisan forum of respected leaders and thinkers to explore long-term structural issues facing the United States economy and to develop innovative policies to address them.

The group is co-chaired by Henry M. Paulson, Jr., former secretary of the Treasury and chairman of Goldman Sachs, and Erskine Bowles, former White House chief of staff and president of the University of North Carolina system. Lanhee J. Chen, PhD, the David and Diane Steffy Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Director of Domestic Policy Studies in Public Policy at Stanford University, serves as the group's director and Amy Ganz, formerly of Andreessen Horowitz, is the group's deputy director.

The Aspen Economic Strategy Group comprises 62 invitation-only members, including business leaders, policymakers, academics, journalists, and advocates. The Group will examine pressing economic issues, foster an open exchange of new and out-of-the-box ideas, socialize viable solutions in Washington, and influence policymaking through ideas that subsets of members may choose to support. Further, the Group seeks to foster bipartisan relationship-building between promising young thought leaders and more seasoned professionals.

"Improving the country's economic trajectory requires workable, politically feasible ideas," said Paulson. "America is not effectively addressing the fundamental and festering structural challenges facing our economy, and the Aspen Economic Strategy Group is aimed at surfacing smart approaches to policy that will help change that dynamic."

"For America to continue to be the world's leading economy, we must tackle economic challenges such as stagnant growth, income inequality and the shocks of globalization," Bowles said. "The Aspen Economic Strategy Group will provide valuable insights and policy ideas to move our nation's economy forward."

The Economic Strategy Group, which will convene annually, will take on a different set of issues each calendar year, allowing members to explore topics comprehensively, as well as to drill down on specific policy solutions and ideas. Along with its annual meeting, the Group will hold periodic public events featuring subsets of members.

The Group will consider a diverse range of economic policy concerns, such as how fast the economy can grow, why so many Americans feel like they are working harder but falling behind, and how automation and the rise of temporary work have impacted employers, workers, and livelihoods.

"America's economic policies are out of balance with the realities of the 21st century and are not working to advance the growth and the job-creation potential of our economy," said Aspen Institute President and CEO Walter Isaacson. "Given the Institute's long history of spearheading successful bipartisan efforts, we are delighted to be launching the Aspen Economic Strategy Group with an extraordinary and diverse group of leaders representing both sides of the aisle."

Below is the membership of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group:

Co-chairs:

Hank Paulson
Chairman, Paulson Institute

Erskine Bowles
Senior Advisor, BDT Capital Partners LLC

Members:

Wally Adeyemo
Senior Adviser, BlackRock and Senior Adviser, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

Kelly Ayotte
Former U.S. Senator from New Hampshire

Mary Barra
Chairman and CEO, General Motors Company

Ben Bernanke
Distinguished Fellow, Brookings Institution

Joshua Bolten
President & CEO, Business Roundtable

Ursula Burns
Retired Chairman and CEO, Xerox Corporation; Chairman of the Veon Group

Julian Castro
Former Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Lanhee Chen
David and Diane Steffy Research Fellow,
Hoover Institution

David Cote
Executive Chairman, Honeywell

Jim Crown
President, Henry Crown & Company

Ray Dalio
Founder, Co-Chief Investment Officer and Co-Chairman, Bridgewater Associates

Mitch Daniels
President, Purdue University

Brian Deese
Senior Fellow, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School

Sue Desmond-Hellmann, M.D, M.P.H
CEO, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Laurence D. Fink
Founder, Chairman, and CEO, BlackRock, Inc.

Kristin Forbes
Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Professor of Management and Global Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Roland Fryer
Henry Lee Professor of Economics, Harvard University

Jason Furman
Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

Tim Geithner
President, Warburg Pincus LLC

Austan Goolsbee
Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics, University of Chicago

Danielle Gray
Partner, O'Melveny & Myers LLP

Reed Hastings
Founder & CEO, Netflix

Keith Hennessey
Lecturer, Stanford Graduate School of Business

Marillyn Hewson
Chairman, President & CEO, Lockheed Martin

Fred Hiatt
Editorial Page Editor, The Washington Post

Doug Holtz-Eakin
President, American Action Forum

Glenn Hubbard
Dean, Columbia Business School

Neil Irwin
Senior Economic Correspondent, The New York Times

Greg Ip
Chief Economics Commentator, The Wall Street Journal

Joel Kaplan
Vice President, Global Public Policy at Facebook

Neel Kashkari
President and Chief Executive Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

Melissa Kearney
Neil Moskowitz Professor of Economics, University of Maryland

Ellen Kullman
Former Chair and CEO, DuPont

Maya MacGuineas
President, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

Greg Mankiw
Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics, Harvard University

Sylvia Mathews Burwell
President, American University

Jim McNerney
Former Chairman, The Boeing Company

Magne Mogstad
Gary S. Becker Professor in Economics, University of Chicago

Marc Morial
President and CEO, National Urban League

Janet Murguía
President and CEO, UnidosUS

Phebe Novakovic
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer,
General Dynamics

Michael Nutter
David N. Dinkins Professor of Professional Practice in Urban and Public Affairs, Columbia University

Jim Owens
Former Chairman and CEO, Caterpillar Inc.

John Podesta
Former Counselor to President Obama, Former Chief of Staff for President Clinton

Ruth Porat
SVP & Chief Financial Officer,
Alphabet and Google

Jim Poterba
Mitsui Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Penny Pritzker
Founder and Chairman, PSP Capital Partners

Bruce Reed
CEO and Co-Founder, Civic LLC

Mitt Romney
Former Governor, Massachusetts

Bob Rubin
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary
Chairman Emeritus, Council on Foreign Relations

Stephen Schwarzman
Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder, Blackstone Group LP

Margaret Spellings
President, University of North Carolina System

Gene Sperling
Former Director, National Economic Council

William Spriggs
Professor, Department of Economics at Howard University

Bob Steel
CEO, Perella Weinberg Partners LP

Lawrence H. Summers
Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus, Harvard University

Phill Swagel
Professor in International Economic Policy, University of Maryland School of Public Policy

Kevin Warsh
Shepard Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Economics, Hoover Institution

Jeff Zients
Former Director, National Economic Council

Bob Zoellick
Chairman, AllianceBernstein

Staff:

Director:

Lanhee Chen
David and Diane Steffy Research Fellow,
Hoover Institution

Deputy Director:

Amy Ganz
The Aspen Institute

The Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC. Its mission is to foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues. The Institute is based in Washington, DC; Aspen, Colorado; and on the Wye River on Maryland's Eastern Shore. It also has offices in New York City and an international network of partners. For more information, visit www.aspeninstitute.org.

SOURCE The Aspen Institute

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