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Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey Sachs

Director of the Earth Institute and Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, Columbia University

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development and senior UN advisor. He is the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global prize for environmental leadership. He has twice been named among Time Magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders. He was called by the New York Times, “probably the most important economist in the world”. A recent survey by The Economist Magazine ranked Professor Sachs as among the world’s three most influential living economists of the past decade.

Professor Sachs served as the Director of the Earth Institute from 2002 to 2016. He was appointed University Professor at Columbia University in 2016, and also serves as Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Sustainable Development Goals, and previously advised both UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals.  

Sachs is co-founder and Chief Strategist of Millennium Promise Alliance, and is director of the Millennium Villages Project. He has authored six books: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), The Price of Civilization (2011), To Move the World: JFK’s Quest for Peace (2013) and The Age of Sustainable Development (2015) and the latest book, Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair & Sustainable (February 2017).