Speaker

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned economics professor, bestselling author, innovative educator, and global leader in sustainable development. He is widely recognized for bold and effective strategies to address complex challenges including debt crises, hyperinflations, the transition from central planning to market economies, the control of AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, the escape from extreme poverty, and the battle against human-induced climate change. He is Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, and an SDG Advocate for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. From 2001-18, Sachs served as Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General, for Kofi Annan (2001-7), Ban Ki-moon (2008-16), and Antonio Guterres (2017-18).

Professor Sachs was the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global prize for environmental leadership. He was twice named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders and has received 28 honorary degrees. The New York Times called Sachs “probably the most important economist in the world,” and Time magazine called Sachs “the world’s best-known economist.” A survey by The Economist ranked Sachs as among the three most influential living economists.

Professor Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He is University Professor at Columbia University, the university’s highest academic rank. Sachs was Director of the Earth Institute from 2002 to 2016.

Prior to joining Columbia, Sachs spent over 20 years as a professor at Harvard University, most recently as the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Sachs received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard.

Joanna Stone Herman is a Partner at Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips and serves as the TMT Industry Group Co-Head for Oaklins International, our global investment bank with offices in 60 cities across 40 countries. Prior to joining Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips in 2011, Joanna worked in several senior executive roles including as SVP Global Strategy for LexisNexis, EVP of Corporate Development for Thomson Financial Corporate Group, VP of Strategy for Thomson Learning and Director of Strategy for Dow Jones. Joanna also served as CEO and co-Founder of Librify, a technology start-up that was the exclusive e-book platform for Target, sold to Scribd in 2015. Joanna has a B.S. and Masters degrees from MIT and an MBA from HBS.