Leadership and Secretariat

Richard A. Debs, a founding member of the Bretton Woods Committee, is an Advisory Director of Morgan Stanley, having joined the firm in 1976 as the founding President of Morgan Stanley International to develop the bank’s international business.  Previously, he was the Chief Operating Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he also served as an Alternate Member of the Federal Open Market Committee, and as Chairman of the Federal Reserve – Treasury Committee on Fiscal Agency Operations.  He also served as an Advisor on the United States delegations to the IMF and World Bank annual meetings.  He was the Fed’s principal contact with the OPEC countries during the petrodollar crisis of the 70’s.  During his transition from the Fed to Morgan Stanley, he served as a pro-bono financial advisor to President Sadat of Egypt.

Jim Kolbe currently serves as a Senior Transatlantic Fellow for the German Marshall Fund of the United States.  He is co-chair of the Transatlantic Taskforce on Development, and serves as a strategic consultant with McLarty Associates, as a member of the Board of Directors of Freedom House, and as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  For 22 years, he served in the United States House of Representatives, elected for eleven consecutive terms from 1985 to 2007.  While in Congress, Mr. Kolbe served for 20 years on the Appropriations Committee.

Sir James Wolfensohn (1933) is Chairman of Wolfensohn & Company, LLC, and was Chairman of Citigroup International Advisory Board (2006-2014). Sir James was President of the World Bank Group (1995-2005), and held the post of Special Envoy for Gaza disengagement for the quartet of the Middle East (2005-06). Sir James is Chairman Emeritus of the board of trustees of Carnegie Hall and of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington DC (1996). He was Chairman of the board of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University (1986-2007).

James C. Orr is co-founder and Secretary of the Bretton Woods Committee. In addition, he is managing partner of James Orr Associates, a government policy consulting firm whose clients are international financial services firms, central banks, and government ministries.

William C. Dudley is currently a Senior Research Scholar at the Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies at Princeton University.  He also is a member of the Group of Thirty and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr. Mohamed A. El-Erian is Chief Economic Advisor to Allianz, the corporate parent of PIMCO where he served as CEO and co-CIO (2007-14). He is a contributing editor at the Financial Times and a Bloomberg View columnist.

Ruth Porat is Chief Financial Officer at Google and Alphabet Inc. Formerly, Ruth was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Morgan Stanley from January 2010 to May 2015, and served as Vice Chairman of Investment Banking and Global Head of the Financial Institutions Group. Throughout the financial crisis, Ruth was responsible for the Firm's coverage of financial institutions and governments globally.

Bill Rhodes is a senior advisor for Citi, having stepped back from full time responsibilities after more than 53 years with the institution. He most recently served as the senior vice chairman and senior international officer of Citigroup and Citibank.

Former President of the European Central Bank and Honorary Governor of Banque de France, Jean-Claude Trichet is presently Director of AIRBUS Group, Chairman of the European Group of the Trilateral Commission, and Chairman of the Board of the Bruegel Institute.

Born in Lyon, Jean-Claude Trichet is a graduate of the Ecole nationale supérieure des Mines de Nancy, of the Institut d’études politiques de Paris, of the Université de Paris (in economics) and of the Ecole nationale d’administration.

Sir David Walker served as a non-executive Director and Chairman of the Board of Barclays from 2012 until 2015.

Randy Rodgers is the Executive Director of the Bretton Woods Committee. He is also Founder and Managing Partner of Change Foundations, LLC, a global management consulting firm that assists public and private sector organizations in planning and successfully carrying out their most critical business and organizational change initiatives.

Emily Slater is the Deputy Director at the Bretton Woods Committee where she provides strategic direction for the organization’s annual programming and oversees all day-to-day operations.

Brooke Snowdon is the Program Manager at the Bretton Woods Committee, where she provides overall coordination and execution of the Committee's annual program portfolio.

Sophie Levy is the Office Manager for the Bretton Woods Committee where she manages all external and internal communications and handles office operations.

George H.W. Bush served as the 41st President of the United States (1989–93). He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States (1981–89), a congressman (R-TX), Ambassador to the United Nations, and Director of Central Intelligence.

Jimmy Carter served as the 39th President of the United States (1977–1981) and was awarded the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. President Carter was also as a U.S. Naval officer and served two terms as a Georgia State Senator and one as Governor of Georgia (1971–1975).

Gerald Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States (1974-1977). He had previously served as the 40th Vice President of the United States (1973-1974) and nearly 25 years as the Representative from Michigan's 5th congressional district, including eight as the Republican Minority Leader.

Jerry Corrigan is a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.  He was also a managing director and non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs in the United States and the United Kingdom. Jerry joined Goldman Sachs as a managing director in 1994 and was named partner in 1996.

Henry H. Fowler was Secretary of the Treasury under President Lyndon Johnson (1965-1968). He also served as Under Secretary of the Treasury (1961 -1964), an assistant general counsel of the Office of Production Management and War Production Board (1941-1944), and Director of the Office of Defense Mobilization and member of the National Security Council during the Korean War.

William E. Frenzel served his Minnesota constituency for 20 years in the US House of Representatives.

Mr. Frenzel was the Ranking Minority Member on the House Budget Committee and was the principal Republican economic spokesperson in the House. He was a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and its Trade Subcommittee and a Congressional Representative to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in Geneva for 15 years.

Henry Owen was Chairman of the State Department Policy Planning Council under President Lyndon John (1966-1969) and helped to create the Trilateral Commission in 1973. He also served as President Carter’s Ambassador-at-Large and Special Representative of the President for Economic Summits and coordinator of foreign economic policy for the White House.

In the course of his career, Mr. Volcker worked in the United States Federal Government for almost 30 years, culminating in two terms as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 1979-1987, a critical period in bringing a high level of inflation to an end. In earlier stages of his career, Mr. Volcker served as Undersecretary of the Treasury for Monetary Affairs during the early 1970s, a period of historic change in international monetary arrangements.

Charls E. Walker was Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under President Richard Nixon (1969-1974). Previously, he served as Vice President and Economic Advisor to the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, founder and chairman of the American Council for Capital Investment, and Executive Vice President of the American Bankers Association.