Zachary Karabell

Zachary Karabell is an author and columnist, the president of River Twice Research and River Twice Capital, and founder of the Progress Network. Previously, he was Head of Global Strategies at Envestnet, a publicly traded financial services firm. Prior to that, he was President of Fred Alger & Company. In addition, he ran the River Twice Fund from 2011-2013, an alternative fund that focused on sustainability.

Educated at Columbia, Oxford and Harvard, where he received his Ph.D., Karabell has written widely on history, economics and international relations. His most recent book was The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World, and his next book is a history of money, power and the making of America using the storied firm Brown Brothers Harriman as the narrative arc, to be published by Penguin Press in 2020. He is the author of eleven previous books, including The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election (which won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Award for best non-fiction book of the year in 2000); Superfusion: How China and America Became One Economy and Why the World’s Prosperity Depends On It (Simon & Schuster, 2009); and Sustainable Excellence: The Future of Business in the 21^st Century, co-authored with Aron Cramer (Rodale 2010). He also sits on the board of New America. In 2003, the World Economic Forum designated him a “Global Leader for Tomorrow.”

As a commentator, Karabell is a Contributing Editor for Wired and for Politico, and the host of the podcast “What Could Go Right?” Previously he wrote “The Edgy Optimist” column for Slate, Reuters, and The Atlantic. He is a LinkedIn Influencer, and a commentator on CNBC, Fox Business and MSNBC. He also contributes to such publications as The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, The Atlantic, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and Foreign Affairs. He joined the PEN America Board in 2016.