LIAQUAT AHAMED

Discover the insights and perspectives of a Pulitzer Prize Winner, whose work delves into the intricacies of economic history and provides a deep understanding of the forces that shape our world. 

Liaquat Ahamed

Liaquat Ahamedexclusively represented by BrightSight Speakers bureau — has been a professional investment manager for twenty-five years and currently serves as Director of Putnam Funds. He has worked at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and the New York-based partnership of Fischer Francis Trees and Watts, where he served as chief executive. He is currently an adviser to several hedge fund groups, including the Rock Creek Group and the Rohatyn Group, is a director of Aspen Insurance Co., and is on the board of trustees of the Brookings Institution. Exclusively represented by BrightSight Speakers bureau, Liaquat Ahamed has degrees in economics from Harvard and Cambridge universities.

When the global economy was racked by its worst crisis since the Great Depression, there was a renewed interest in the lessons to be learned from the world economic collapse of the late 1920s. Drawing on his best-selling, Pulitzer-prize winning book, Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, Liaquat discusses the insights we can gain from the Great Depression about the forces that cause global financial crises, the similarities between the breakdown in the 1920s and the current meltdown and the actions economic officials need to take in order to reverse the downward spiral in the world economy and avoid a repeat of that cataclysm. 

Speech topics

How Central Banks Get It Wrong - Lessons from the Great Depression

During the 1920s and 1930s at the time of the Great Depression, central bankers had to deal with multiple challenges: real estate and stock market bubbles and busts, collapses in confidence, runs on the financial system, disruptive capital flows, unstable exchange rates and currency and trade wars. Over the last six years central bankers have faced similar challenges. Drawing on his best-selling, Pulitzer-prize winning book, Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, Liaquat will describe the similarities and differences between then and now and assess the actions economic officials have taken to avoid a repeat of the cataclysm of the 1930s.

The Bankers Who Broke the World

Insights from the Great Depression about the forces that cause global financial crises, and what history can (or cannot) tell us about the right medicine for a sick economy • How the people at the center of a crisis impact world events, and the non-economic factors that play an important role in economic decisions • The need for political will in today’s economy, and the actions that officials must take to avoid repeating history

Books

Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World

Winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize 

Money and Tough Love: On Tour with the IMF

In Money and Tough Love Liaquat Ahamed offers brilliant insight into the heart of one the world’s most influential institutions

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