Zachary Karabell

Zachary Karabell is President of River Twice Research, an independent economic research and consulting company. Previously, he was Executive Vice President, Chief Economist, and Head of Marketing at Fred Alger Management, a New York-based investment firm that manages approximately $15 billion in mutual funds and institutional accounts. He was also President of Fred Alger & Company, a broker-dealer; Portfolio Manager of the 5-star China-U.S. Growth Fund (CHUSX); and Executive Vice President of Alger’s Spectra Funds, a no-load family of mutual funds that manages the $30 million Spectra Green Fund. At Alger, he oversaw the creation, launch and marketing of several funds, led corporate strategy for strategic acquisitions, and represented the firm at public forums and in the media.

Educated at Columbia, Oxford and Harvard, where he received his Ph.D., Karabell has taught at several leading universities, including Harvard and Dartmouth, and has written widely on economics, investing, history and international relations. He is the author of a nine books, including The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election (which won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Award for best non-fiction book of the year) and most recently, Peace Be Upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian and Jewish Coexistence (Knopf, 2007), which examines the overlooked and often-forgotten legacy of peace between the three faiths. His next book, Chimerica: How the United States and China Became One and What that Means for the World, will be published by Simon & Schuster in 2009. He sits on the board of the New America Foundation and the World Policy Institute, and in 2003, the World Economic Forum designated him a "Global Leader for Tomorrow." He is a regular commentator on national news programs, such as CNBC, CNN and Fox News and contributes to such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Financial Times, and Foreign Affairs.