Mohamed A. El-Erian is the Rene M Kern Professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the former President of Queens College at the University of Cambridge. Since 2014, he has served as Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz, the corporate parent of PIMCO where he was chief executive and co-chief investment officer (2007-2014).

He is Chair of Gramercy Fund Management, a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, and a contributing editor at the Financial Times. He is a professor of practice at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Senior Global Fellow at the Lauder Institute there. He is currently the chair of the Under Armour board of directors, and serves on that of NBER and several educational institutions. 

Prior to PIMCO, Dr. El-Erian was a managing director at Solomon Smith Barney/Citigroup in London and before that, he spent 15 years at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. where he served as Deputy Director before moving to the private sector. He also spent two years as CEO and President of the Harvard Management Company. Dr. El-Erian served as Chair of President Obama’s Global Development Council (2012-2017).

He 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). His 2016 book, The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability and Avoiding the Next Collapse, was a New York Times bestseller. His latest book, written with Gordon Brown and Michael Spence, is Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World, was a Times’ top ten bestseller.

Dr El-Erian was named to Foreign Policy’s list of “Top 100 Global Thinkers” for four years in a row. He 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 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the IMF’s Committee of Eminent Persons and the New York Fed’ Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets. He chaired the Microsoft Investment Advisory Board between 2007 and 2022. In 2018, he was appointed to the IMF’s External Advisory Group on Surveillance and MIT’s Visiting Committee for the Department of Economics.

Since 2014, Dr El-Erian has served on the jury for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year award. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and government advisory committees. He co-chairs the Capital Campaign for the University of Cambridge and its Colleges.

Recognized for his philanthropic contributions, particularly in the areas of education and health, Dr. El-Erian has received several awards, including lifetime achievement from the 57357 Hospital for Children/Egyptian Cancer Network where he is the Honorary Chair. Other recognitions include the ABNA, Arab Banker of the Year, ACCESS Arab-American of the Year Award, Africa Investor’s Capital Markets Personality of the Year, Fixed Income Analysts Society’s Hall of Fame, Foreign Policy’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers” (4 years in a row), Investment News’ “Icon and Innovator,” Linked-In top 3 “voices” among its “influencers” (2016 and 2017), Louise Bloin Foundation Creative Leadership Award, Middle East Institute’s Visionary Award, Orange County Business Journal’s most influential personalities (multiple times), Ukleja Center’s Nell and John Wooden Ethics in Leadership award, and Worth magazine’s “100 Most Powerful People in Finance” (multiple years).

Dr. El-Erian holds a master’s degree and doctorate in economics from Oxford University and received his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University.