Lester Thurow has advised presidents and informed the American public on such critical issues as deficit reduction and unemployment for more than 30 years. He has been an economics columnist for many national and international publications including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Newsweek, and Nikkei Business Japan, and published numerous best-selling books, of which Fortune Favors the Bold (HarperBusiness, 2003) is the latest.

Thurow is Coordinator of MIT Asia-Pacific Initiatives, and Chairman of both the Technion Institute of Management and The Lemelson-MIT Awards Program. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University in 1962, where he received his M.A. and took first class honors in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. In 1964, he received a Ph.D.in Economics from Harvard University.