Kent Lassman

Kent Lassman is president and CEO of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, where he oversees strategy for the free market organization, including management of a team of policy, communications, and fundraising staff. Prior to joining CEI, Lassman spent eight years as vice president at a public affairs firm in Washington, DC, counseling clients on campaign approaches to issues ranging from telecommunications to privacy to biotechnology and state licensure. His past experience includes testimony before Congress, state legislatures, and in regulatory proceedings. His research has covered topics as varied as the federal budget and Progressivism in America, as well as electricity and tech policy. Having held positions in nonprofit organizations, on advisory councils, at private firms, and policy organizations, Lassman is a recognized expert in free-market economics and strategic marketing for the principles necessary for individual and economic freedom to flourish. In addition to previous roles in strategy, research, and communications at nonprofit policy organizations including FreedomWorks, Citizens for a Sound Economy, and Progress & Freedom Foundation, from 2003 to 2008, he served on the President’s Advisory Council for the State Policy Network. He was the founding director and on the faculty of the Institute for Regulatory Law & Economics. From 2001 to 2006, he served as an advisor to the Task Force on Telecommunications & Information Technology at the American Legislative Exchange Council. Lassman holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy and politics from The Catholic University of America, with honors for work on market theory, and a Master of Public Administration degree from North Carolina State University. He is an avid triathlete and serves on the board of Tri Equal, an organization dedicated to fairness, development and gender equality in the sport of triathlon. He commutes on two wheels into Washington, DC, from Alexandria, Va., where he lives with his wife, four children, and their rescue dog.