Gene Sperling

Gene B. Sperling is senior fellow for economic studies and director of the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). From 1997 to 2001, Mr. Sperling served as national economic advisor to President Clinton and as deputy national economic advisor from 1993 to 1996. He was the third director of the National Economic Council, following Robert Rubin and Laura Tyson. Mr. Sperling currently serves as U.S. chair of the Global Campaign for Education, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations focused on universal basic education. He coauthored a Council Special Report, What Works in Girls’ Education: Evidence and Policies from the Developing World and has written essays calling for a strong global compact on education in such publications as Foreign Affairs, New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, and the IMF Quarterly: Finance and Development. Representing the Clinton administration at the 2000 UN World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, Mr. Sperling delivered one of the keynote addresses. He was a member of the UN Millennium Task Force on Gender Equality and Education, and served on the Education Expert Group of the World Economic Forum’s Global Governance Initiative in 2003 to 2004, and currently serves as a member of the FTI Task Team on Education in Fragile States and as a member of the Advisory Board for the Gates Foundation/Hewlett Partnership on Quality Education. Mr. Sperling is also a senior fellow of economic policy at the Center for American Progress, a contributing editor and columnist for Bloomberg News, a governor on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Board, a former consultant and contributing writer to NBC’s The West Wing. He has done economic commentary on such programs as: Meet the Press, Face the Nation, This Week, CNN's Late Edition, Good Morning America, and Nightline. He is the author of The Pro-Growth Progressive: An Economic Strategy for Shared Prosperity (Simon & Schuster). Mr. Sperling graduated from the University of Minnesota summa cum laude, attended Wharton Business School and graduated from Yale Law School where he was senior editor of the Yale Law Journal. He is a native of Ann Arbor, Michigan and currently lives with his wife, Allison Abner, and their children in Washington, DC.