Elizabeth Economy

Principal

Former Senior Advisor for China to the Secretary, Department of Commerce

Dr. Elizabeth Economy, Ph.D., is a Principal with WestExec advisors and a Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. From 2021–2023, she served as the Senior Sdvisor for China to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. She was previously at the Council on Foreign Relations, where she served as the C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director for Asia Studies.

Liz is an acclaimed author and expert on Chinese domestic and foreign policy. Her books include The World According to China (Polity, 2022), The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State, (Oxford University Press, 2018), which was shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize, By All Means Necessary: How China’s Resource Quest is Changing the World (Oxford University Press, 2014), and The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future (Cornell University Press, 2004). The River Runs Black was named one of the top 50 sustainability books in 2008 by the University of Cambridge, won the 2005 International Convention on Asia Scholars Award for the best social sciences book published on Asia, and was listed as one of the top ten books of 2004 by the Globalist as well as one of the best business books of 2010 by Booz Allen Hamilton’s strategy+business magazine. Her books have been translated into multiple langauges. She also coedited China Joins the World: Progress and Prospects (Council on Foreign Relations Press, with Michel Oksenberg, 1999) and The Internationalization of Environmental Protection (Cambridge University Press, with Miranda Schreurs, 1997). She has published articles in foreign policy andscholarly journals including Foreign Affairs, Harvard Business Review, and Foreign Policy, as well as op-eds in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, among others. Liz is a frequent guest on nationally broadcast television and radio programs, has testified before Congress on multiple occasions, and regularly consults for both U.S. government agencies andcompanies. In June 2018, she was named one of the “10 Names That Matter on China Policy” by Politico Magazine.

Liz serves on the board of managers of Swarthmore College and is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group. She was also on the advisory council of Network 20/20 and the science advisory council of the Stockholm Environment Forum. She served as a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Global Agenda Council on the United States from 2014 to 2016 and served as a member and then vice chair of WEF’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of China from 2008 to 2014. Liz also served on the board of the China-U.S. Center for Sustainable Development and has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses at Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, and the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies.

Liz received her B.A. with honors from Swarthmore College, her A.M. from Stanford University, andher Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. In 2008, she received an honorary doctor of law degree from Vermont Law School. She lives in New York City with her husband and three children.