Heidi Crebo-Rediker – Keynote Speaker

Heidi Crebo-Rediker served as the State Department’s first Chief Economist. Appointed to this Assistant Secretary level position by Secretary Clinton as a centrepiece of her “Economic Statecraft” initiative, she provided advice and analysis to the Secretary on a wide range of foreign policy issues having a significant economic, market or financial component.

Before this she was the Chief of International Finance and Economics for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, following nearly two decades in Europe as a senior investment banker. In the Senate, she advised then Chairman John Kerry on international and domestic economic and financial issues. During her time in the Senate, she was also the architect of the bi-partisan National Infrastructure Bank legislation (The BUILD Act) introduced in March 2011 and included in President Obama’s Jobs Act.

Over her investment banking career, she managed businesses ranging from European Debt Capital Markets, Emerging Markets Debt Capital Markets, to Sovereign, Supranational and Public Sector Banking. In this capacity, she managed public and private financings for governments, corporations and banks, and related advisory work, in both developed and emerging markets.

She was named one of the “Top 25 Women in Business” by The Wall Street Journal Europe. She has been a guest lecturer at MIT, Stanford, Georgetown and American University and holds degrees from Dartmouth College and the London School of Economics. Her views on financial and economic matters have been carried in many forums, including CNN, BBC, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Bloomberg, The New Republic, Forbes, Foreign Policy and Barron’s.