Zachary Karabell

Zachary Karabell is the founder of the Progress Network at New America, president of River Twice Capital, and an author and columnist. Previously, he was Head of Global Strategies at Envestnet. Prior to that, he was Executive Vice President, Chief Economist, and Head of Marketing at Fred Alger Management, a New York-based investment firm. He was also President of Fred Alger & Company and Portfolio Manager of the China-U.S. Growth Fund. In addition, he founded and ran the River Twice Fund from 2011-2013, an alternative investment fund which used sustainable business as its primary investment theme.

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. His most recent book, Inside Money: Brown Brothers Harriman and the American Way of Power was published by Penguin Press in May 2021. His next book is a global history of corn. He is the author of eleven previous 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 in 2000); Superfusion: How China and America Became One Economy and Why the World’s Prosperity Depends On It (Simon & Schuster, 2009); The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers that Rule Our World (S&S 2014), and Sustainable Excellence: The Future of Business in the 21st Century, co-authored with Aron Cramer (Rodale 2010). He sits on the board of New America, Heyday Books and PEN America and in 2003, the World Economic Forum designated him a "Global Leader for Tomorrow." He is also a part owner of Shakespeare & Co. bookstores in New York City and Mine Hill Distillery in Roxbury, CT.

As a commentator, Karabell is a regular columnist for Time and Contributing Editor for Politico, and the host of the Progress Network podcast “What Could Go Right?” Previously he wrote “The Edgy Optimist” column for Slate, Reuters, and The Atlantic. He is a LinkedIn Influencer, and an occasional commentator on CNBC, Fox Business and MSNBC, and was a Contributing Editor for Wired and The Daily Beast. He also contributes to such publications as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, The Financial Times, and Foreign Affairs.