Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin To Speak at Yale

Robert E. Rubin, secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton and economic advisor to President Obama, will deliver the Arthur M. Okun Public Policy Lecture at Yale on April 7.

The lecture, titled “The Global Crisis and Decision Making,” will take place in Levinson Auditorium of Yale Law School, 127 Wall St., at 4 p.m. It is free and open to the public.

As secretary of the Treasury from 1995 to 1999, Rubin played a leading role in balancing the federal budget; opening trade policy to further globalization; acting to stem financial crises in Mexico, Asia and Russia; and guiding reforms at the Internal Revenue Service, among other achievements.

Rubin joined the Clinton administration in 1993 as director of the newly created National Economic Council (NEC). Under his guidance, the NEC oversaw the administration’s domestic and international economic policymaking process, coordinated economic policy recommendations to the President and monitored their implementation.

Rubin began his career in finance at Goldman, Sachs & Company in 1966. He served as vice-chairman and co-chief operating officer from 1987 to 1990 and as co-senior partner and co-chairman from 1990 to 1992.

From 1999 to 2009, Rubin served as a senior advisor and member of the Board of Directors at Citigroup. Earlier this year, he announced his intention to retire from the company and not stand for reelection as a board member.

Rubin is the chairman of the board of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the nation’s leading community development support organization, with 38 offices nationwide. He is also one of the founders of The Hamilton Project, a program housed at the Brookings Institution dedicated to developing innovative economic policies to benefit more Americans.

With Jacob Weisberg, Rubin is the author of the 2003 New York Times bestseller “In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington.” The book was named one of Business Week’s 10 best business books of 2003.

In 2003, Rubin was named vice chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is currently the co-chair of the council.

A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, Rubin received a LL.B. from Yale Law School in 1964.

The Okun Lecture is sponsored by the Yale Department of Economics.