April 26, 2005
Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury, to be UW Commencement speaker
The Honorable Robert E. Rubin, who was President Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury from 1995 to 1999, will be the speaker at the University of Washington’s Commencement exercises June 11 at Husky Stadium.
Rubin, 67, who holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, a law degree from Yale and also attended the London School of Economics, began his career in finance as an associate at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in 1966. He became a general partner in 1971, joined the management committee in 1980, and became vice chairman and co-chief operating officer in 1987. He was co-senior partner and co-chairman from 1990 to 1992.
Rubin joined the Clinton administration in1993, serving as assistant to the President for economic policy and the first director of the National Economic Council. As Secretary of the Treasury, Rubin was the principal architect of the Clinton administration’s economic policy. He was a key figure in major policy issues such as balancing the federal budget; global trade policy; ameliorating financial crises in Mexico, Asia and Russia; resolving the dispute between Congress and the President over the federal debt limit; safeguarding American currency against counterfeiting; introducing inflation-indexed securities; and reforming the Internal Revenue Service. He also was a leading advocate for policies that met the need for economic development in the nation’s distressed urban and rural areas.
Upon leaving the Clinton administration, Rubin became director, chairman of the executive committee and member of the office of the chairman of Citigroup, Inc. He also serves as chairman of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the nation’s leading community development support organization. In 2003 he was named vice chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Rubin has served on the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange, Harvard Management Co., New York City Partnership, and on the board of trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the President’s Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations, the Securities and Exchange Commission Market Oversight and Financial Services Advisory Committee, the Mayor of New York’s Council of Economic Advisors and the Governor’s Council on Fiscal and Economic Priorities for the state of New York. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Ford Motor Co. and on the board of trustees of Mount Sinai-NYU Health. He also is on the advisory board of Insight Venture Partners, an investment firm specializing in e-commerce business-to-business companies. He is a member of the Harvard Corp.
Rubin is the author of “In An Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington,” which was a New York Times bestseller as well as being named one of Business Week’s ten best business books of the year in 2003.
