The future of American financial and economic statecraft

George (Yiorgos) Allayannis is the Robert F. Bruner Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and former associate dean of Darden's Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) program. He is an expert in corporate finance, risk management, financial institutions and international finance. His work has examined the impact of derivatives on risk and firm value, corporate governance and its influence in a firm's use of derivatives for hedging, as well as firms' financial and operational hedging strategies. Other work has examined volatility and its implications for firm value distinguishing between earnings and cash flow volatility. His research has been published in leading finance journals, such as the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies. He holds a PhD from New York University.

Emily Blanchard is an economics professor and the Daniel R. Revers T'89 Faculty Fellow at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. She is a research fellow with the Center for Economic Policy Research and a member of the CESIfo research network. She served as chief economist of the U.S. Department of State from January 2022 to November 2023. Beyond her academic research on international economics and public policy, she partners with leading national and international institutions to bring research to practice. She is a former chair and a founding board member for the nonpartisan, nonprofit National Economic Education Delegation. She graduated with honors in economics from Wellesley College and earned MSc and PhD degrees in economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She was previously an assistant professor of economics at the University of Virginia.

Everett Eissenstat is a partner in the public policy practice group at Squire Patton Boggs and a global trade expert. During a distinguished government career spanning more than two decades, Eissenstat served as deputy assistant to the president for international economic affairs and deputy director of the National Economic Council. He coordinated interagency policy development and implementation on international economic policy matters; served as the president’s personal representative and principal negotiator to the Group of 7 (G7), G20, and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economic summits; and led interagency preparations for all international summits. He previously held key roles in the U.S. House, Senate, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, including twice serving as chief international trade counsel to the chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee (2011–17 under Senator Orrin Hatch and 2001–6 under Senator Chuck Grassley). He holds a BS from Oklahoma State University, an MA from the University of Texas at Austin, and a JD from the University of Oklahoma.

Henry Farrell is Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the 2019 winner of the Friedrich Schiedel Prize for Politics and Technology. He researches democracy, artificial intelligence (AI), and global economic coercion. His books include The Political Economy of Trust: Interests, Institutions and Inter-Firm Cooperation; Of Privacy and Power: The Transatlantic Fight Over Freedom and Security (with Abraham Newman); and Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (with Abraham Newman). He is a cofounder of the academic blog Crooked Timber and from 2019 to 2022 was editor in chief of The Monkey Cage, a political science blog hosted at The Washington Post. He holds a BA and an MA in politics from University College Dublin, an MA in German and European Studies from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and a PhD in government from Georgetown University.

Ambassador Michael Froman is president of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He was previously vice chairman and president, strategic growth, at Mastercard; chairman of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth; and a distinguished fellow at CFR. Froman served in President Barack Obama’s cabinet as the U.S. trade representative from June 2013 to January 2017. From January 2009 to June 2013, Froman served as assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for international economic affairs. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Froman held several roles at Citigroup and spent seven years in the U.S. government serving as chief of staff and deputy assistant secretary for Eurasia and the Middle East at the U.S. Department of Treasury. He was also a director for international economic affairs at the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. Froman served as the James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center in 2017–18. He received a bachelor’s degree in public and international affairs from Princeton University, a doctorate in international relations from Oxford University, and law degree from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Peter Harrell is a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where his research focuses on issues of U.S. domestic economic competitiveness, trade policy, and the use of economic tools in U.S. foreign policy. He is also an attorney advising companies and investors on international legal, regulatory, and geopolitical risks. From January 2021 through 2022, Harrell served at the U.S. White House as senior director for international economics. Harrell served from 2012 to 2014 as the deputy assistant secretary for counterthreat finance and sanctions in the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs and from 2009 to 2012 on the State Department’s policy planning staff, where he was instrumental in developing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s economic statecraft agenda. Harrell is a graduate of Princeton University and holds a JD from Yale Law School.

Ambassador Kristen Silverberg, president and chief operating officer of Business Roundtable, helps to lead an organization of more than 200 CEOs who advocate for policies to support a strong U.S. economy and greater economic opportunity for Americans. She was previously a managing director at the Institute of International Finance. She served in the George W. Bush administration as U.S. ambassador to the European Union and as assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs. She also held a number of senior positions at the White House including deputy assistant to the president. Silverberg formerly practiced law at Williams and Connolly, LLP, in Washington, D.C., and served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and to Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals. She graduated from Harvard College and the University of Texas School of Law. Silverberg serves on the boards of the International Republican Institute and the Forum for American Leadership.

Philip Zelikow is the Botha-Chan Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is also the White Burkett Miller Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Virginia, where he also was a director of the Miller Center. Later he served UVA as dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. His scholarly work has focused on critical episodes in American and world history. His federal service during five administrations has included positions in the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon. He directed a short-lived federal agency, the 9/11 Commission. He is one of the few individuals to serve on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board for presidents of both parties, in the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. An author of an early monograph on economic intelligence and case studies on economic policymaking, his current forays in economic statecraft involve work on Russian assets and Ukraine, Taiwan, and the national security agenda for AI. Zelikow holds a PhD from Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

William Antholis has served as director and CEO of the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs since January 2015. In that time, the Miller Center has strengthened its position as the leading nonpartisan research institution on the American presidency and worked with scholars across UVA to deliver vital research to policymakers and the public. Before coming to the Miller Center, Antholis served as managing director at the Brookings Institution from 2004 to 2014. He served as director of international economic affairs at the National Security Council and the National Economic Council from 1997 to 1999 and also at the State Department’s policy planning staff from 1995 to 1997. Antholis is the author of Inside Out India and China: Local Politics Go Global (2013) and coauthor (with Strobe Talbott) of Fast Forward: Ethics and Politics in the Age of Global Warming (2010). He has published articles, book chapters, and opinion pieces on U.S. politics, U.S. foreign policy, international organizations, the G8, climate change, and trade. He holds a BA from UVA and a PhD from Yale University.

Alexander Bick is an associate professor of practice at the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and a faculty senior fellow at the Miller Center. He previously served in the Obama and Biden administrations, including twice on the secretary of state’s policy planning staff and as director for strategic planning at the National Security Council, where helped craft the 2022 National Security Strategy and led the interagency “tiger team” that planned the U.S. government’s response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Bick holds a BA in political science from the University of Chicago, a diploma in economics and an MSc in economic history from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a PhD in history from Princeton University. His forthcoming book, Minutes of Empire, explores Dutch economic statecraft in the Dutch Golden Age through a study of decision-making within the board of directors of the West India Company.

Scott Miller is the director of the University of Virginia Miller Center's Project on Democracy and Capitalism and an assistant professor at the Miller Center. He is also a lecturer and research associate at the UVA Darden School of Business. From 2019 to 2021, he held a postdoctoral fellowship in economic and business history at the Yale School of Management’s International Center for Finance. As an economic historian, Miller examines the development of modern economic systems, particularly during periods of instability and volatility. He is the author or coauthor of numerous scholarly papers on economic history, financial crises, and the interplay between societal and economic change. He also has written or cowritten 10 case studies on financial crises and economic development. Miller earned a BA from Vanguard University, an MA in American history from George Mason University, and an MA and PhD in economic history from UVA.