Mohamed A. El-Erian

Recipient of the Middle East Institute Visionary Award MEI's 2015 Annual Awards Banquet.

Mohamed A. El-Erian is chief economic advisor at Allianz, the corporate parent of PIMCO, where he formerly served as chief executive and co-chief investment officer. He chairs President Obama’s Global Development Council, is a columnist for Bloomberg View and a contributing editor at the Financial Times.

Dr. El-Erian first joined PIMCO in 1999 and was a senior member of PIMCO's portfolio management and investment strategy group. He rejoined the company at the end of 2007 after serving for two years as president and CEO of Harvard Management Company, the entity that manages Harvard’s endowment and related accounts. Before coming to PIMCO, Dr. El-Erian was a managing director at Salomon Smith Barney/Citigroup in London and before that he spent 15 years at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C.

Dr. El-Erian has published widely on international economic and finance topics. His 2008 book, When Markets Collide, was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, won the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year and was named a book of the year by The Economist and one of the best business books of all time by the Independent (UK). He was named to Foreign Policy’s list of “Top 100 Global Thinkers” for 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. He served on the 2014 jury for the Financial Times/McKenzie Book of the Year award.

Dr. El-Erian has served on several boards and committees, including the U.S. Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, the International Center for Research on Women, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the IMF's Committee of Eminent Persons and the New York Fed’ Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets. He is currently a board member of the NBER, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, New America, KAUST and Cambridge in America. He is co-chairing the new capital campaign for the University and Colleges of Cambridge (UK). Since 2007, he has been chair of Microsoft’s Investment Advisory Board. Dr. El-Erian holds a master's degree and doctorate in economics from Oxford University and received his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University. He is an Honorary Fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge University.