Peter Peterson ✝
Investment banker, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce
Peter George Peterson was the founder and chairman of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to raising awareness of America’s long-term fiscal challenges and promoting solutions to ensure a better economic future. Prior to starting the Foundation, Peterson spent more than 50 years working in business and public service. In 1985, he co-founded The Blackstone Group, and over the next two decades he helped grow the firm into a global leader in alternative investments. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, Peterson served as chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers and Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc. Before working in Washington, Pete was Chairman and CEO of audio-visual equipment manufacturer Bell & Howell, and an executive at advertising firm McCann Erickson.
Peterson’s public service began in 1971, when President Richard Nixon named him Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs. One year later, he was named U.S. Secretary of Commerce. At that time, he also assumed the chairmanship of President Nixon’s National Commission on Productivity and was appointed U.S. Chairman of the U.S.-Soviet Commercial Commission. He again took on a public service role from 2000 to 2004, when he chaired the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
In addition to his work with the Foundation, Peterson was chairman emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, founding chairman of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC, and founding president of The Concord Coalition. Along with former U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow, he co-chaired the Conference Board Commission on Public Trust and Private Enterprise. He served as a director of numerous corporations and was the author of five books, including the best-selling Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It (2004) and his recently published memoir, The Education of an American Dreamer: How a Son of Greek Immigrants Learned His Way from a Nebraska Diner to Washington, Wall Street, and Beyond.
Peterson passed away at the age of 91 on March 20th, 2018.
He was hosted by The Common Good in 2008: The Crisis We Don't Like to Talk About.
