Jeffrey Garten

Jeffrey E. Garten (born October 29, 1946) is the Juan Trippe Professor in the Practice of International Trade, Finance and Business at the Yale School of Management and the Chairman of Garten Rothkopf, a global consulting firm. He also serves on several corporate and philanthropic boards.

From 1996-2005 he was the dean of the school, and before that, Undersecretary of Commerce for international trade in the first Clinton administration. Previously he worked on Wall Street as managing director at the Blackstone Group and Lehman Brothers. He is the author of four books on the global political economy and numerous articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Newsweek, Foreign Affairs, and Harvard Business Review. From 1997-2005 he wrote a monthly column in Business Week.

Early Life and Career

Garten is the son of Mel and Ruth Garten.[1] His father fought in World War II and the Korean War;[1] and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1953 for his heroism on Korea's Pork Chop Hill.[1] His brother is federal prosecutor Allan Garten.[1] Garten earned his B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1968 and an M.A. (1972) and Ph.D. (1980) from the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. He also served in the United States Army from 1968 to 1972, holding the rank of Lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division and Captain and aide-de camp to the commanding general of the US Special Forces. In 1971 he was an advisor to the Royal Thai Army.

After Johns Hopkins, Garten worked in the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations in a variety of foreign policy and economic positions. He then went on to Wall Street, becoming a managing director of Lehman Brothers and the Blackstone Group. At Lehman, he specialized in sovereign debt restructuring in Latin America. He also lived in Tokyo and directed and expanded the Asian investment banking business for that firm, including overseeing some of the largest international corporate restructurings of the era. At Blackstone he worked in the financial advisory and mergers and acquisitions arena. He then became the Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade in the Clinton administration where he focused his efforts on trade and investment deals in “Big Emerging Markets” such as China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico and Turkey. From 1996 to 2005, Garten was dean of the Yale School of Management after which he stayed on to teach full-time. His courses have included "Leading A Global Company," "Wall Street and Washington," and "Managing Global Catastrophes," and he has led study trips for students to China, Singapore, Dubai and London.

In 2006, Garten and a colleague, David Rothkopf, set up Garten Rothkopf in Washington to provide strategic advice for global companies, international organizations and governments.

Garten sits on the boards of directors for several organizations, including the Aetna Corporation, CarMax, Inc. and Credit Suisse Asset Management (a number of mutual funds.) He is also on the advisory board of Miller Buckfire, a financial restructuring firm, and he is a trustee of The International Rescue Committee. Previously he was a director of Standard & Poor's (“the Board of Managers”), Calpine Energy Corporation, Alcan Inc., and The Conference Board, and he served on the international advisory boards of Toyota and the Chicago Climate Exchange.

Personal life

Garten is married to Ina Garten, who hosts Food Network's Barefoot Contessa and has written eight best-selling cookbooks. Garten and his wife live in Southport, Connecticut, and East Hampton, New York. He is the son of Colonel Melvin Garten (ret.), a highly decorated veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and the late Ruth Garten.

Activities at Yale

Garten has been teaching a number of courses at the Yale School of Management:

He has led the following International Study Trips with Yale students:

Books

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 The Oregonian: "A soldier's story about his wife: Mel Garten credits wife Ruth for his success" by Mike Francis February 09, 2012