PLACE OF BIRTH: NEW YORK
TITLE: CHIEF ECONOMIC ADVISOR, ALLIANZ; AUTHOR, THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN: CENTRAL BANKS, INSTABILITY, AND AVOIDING THE NEXT COLLAPSE
IMPACT: THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER, MOHAMED EL-ERIAN HAS CONSISTENTLY REMINDED AMERICANS THAT WE ARE NOT AN ECONOMIC ISLAND, helping to explain the U.S. to the world and vice versa. El-Erian was born in New York in 1958 when his father, an Egyptian diplomat, was working there. The family returned to Cairo soon after, but in 1968 El-Erian’s father took a United Nations job and the family came back to New York. “I immediately took to the more open, dynamic and diverse environment,” the dual U.S.-Egyptian citizen says now, “from the way classes were taught to the much less restricted discussions.” After higher education at Cambridge and Oxford, El-Erian returned to the U.S. in 1983 for jobs at the IMF, Harvard Management Company and most notably, PIMCO, which he left in 2014. His new book, a prescient guide for thinking about current economic challenges, reflects his global perspective. But at the same time, El-Erian says, being an immigrant “has given me an appreciation for how unique and special the U.S. is.”
TITLE: CHIEF ECONOMIC ADVISOR, ALLIANZ; AUTHOR, THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN: CENTRAL BANKS, INSTABILITY, AND AVOIDING THE NEXT COLLAPSE
IMPACT: THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER, MOHAMED EL-ERIAN HAS CONSISTENTLY REMINDED AMERICANS THAT WE ARE NOT AN ECONOMIC ISLAND, helping to explain the U.S. to the world and vice versa. El-Erian was born in New York in 1958 when his father, an Egyptian diplomat, was working there. The family returned to Cairo soon after, but in 1968 El-Erian’s father took a United Nations job and the family came back to New York. “I immediately took to the more open, dynamic and diverse environment,” the dual U.S.-Egyptian citizen says now, “from the way classes were taught to the much less restricted discussions.” After higher education at Cambridge and Oxford, El-Erian returned to the U.S. in 1983 for jobs at the IMF, Harvard Management Company and most notably, PIMCO, which he left in 2014. His new book, a prescient guide for thinking about current economic challenges, reflects his global perspective. But at the same time, El-Erian says, being an immigrant “has given me an appreciation for how unique and special the U.S. is.”
Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/Getty Images
