Today, President Barack Obama signed an executive order establishing the new Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide a diverse and independent voice to the President as he formulates and implements his plans for economic recovery, essentially "[a]dditional eyes and ears" on economic issues. According to the President, the Board will "[e]nlist voices to come from beyond the Washington echo chamber, to ensure that no stone is unturned as we work to put people back to work and get our economy moving." The President is "[n]ot interested in groupthink, which is why the Board reflects a broad cross-section of experience, expertise, and ideology."
The Board will be chaired by Paul Volker, former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and current chairman of the Group of 30, which two weeks ago issued a report recommending substantial changes to the financial regulatory system. On Wednesday, Chairman Volker also testified before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on modernizing the U.S. financial regulatory system. The Board will also include the following:
Staff Director and Chief Economist
Austan Goolsbee
Members
William H. Donaldson, Chairman, SEC (2003-2005)
Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., President & CEO, TIAA-CREF
Robert Wolf, Chairman & CEO, UBS Group Americas
David F. Swensen, CIO, Yale University
Mark T. Gallogly, Founder & Managing Partner, Centerbridge Partners L.P.
Penny Pritzker, Chairman & Founder, Pritzker Realty Group
Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO, GE
John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
Jim Owens, Chairman and CEO, Caterpillar Inc.
Monica C. Lozano, Publisher & Chief Executive Officer, La Opinion
Charles E. Phillips, Jr., President, Oracle Corporation
Anna Burger, Chair, Change to Win
Richard L. Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO
Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Dean, Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley
Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University
