Jacques Attali was appointed by President Sarkozy to head the commission promoting growth in the French economy. He was the Founder and first President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and is currently Founder and President of PlaNet Finance, an international non-profit organisation that uses the Internet against poverty, focusing on structuring the micro-finance sector. He is also chairman of an investment bank and private-equity vehicle specialising in the development of European IT start-ups, from software to genomics.
Jacques led François Mitterand’s campaign for Presidential election in 1974 and 1981. Once elected, Mitterand named Attali as his special adviser and entrusted him with the role of “sherpa” (personal representative to a head of state) for the G7 summits. Later in 1985, he co-founded the European programme EUREKA, a European inter-governmental programme for new technologies, which developed, among other things, the MP3. Between 2008 and 2010 he also led a government committee on how to stimulate growth in the French economy.
Jacques Attali is a man of action and reflection and an economic theorist with degrees from the elite French “grandes écoles,”. He has taught economics at several leading French universities.
He is the author of over fifty books on topics ranging from mathematical economy to music to novels, songs, short stories and theatre plays, translated into more than twenty languages.
Foreign Policy Magazine included Jacques Attali in the Top 100 ‘global thinkers’ in the World in 2009.
His main work in economics and sociology has been on the main trends in human history and their use to forecast the future. He was one of the few to forecast the global economic crisis back in 2006.
Jacques Attali is a brilliant and emotive speaker. He has been described as a true “Renaissance Man,” he addresses a wide range of subjects, whether they be economic, political or philosophic.
