Laura Tyson, Dean, London Business School

Laura D Tyson has been Dean of London Business School since January 2002. She was formerly Dean of the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley.

Dr Tyson served in the Clinton Administration from January 1993 to December 1996. Between March 1995 and December 1996 she served as President Clinton’s National Economic Adviser and was the highest-ranking woman in the Clinton White House. Dr Tyson was a key architect of President Clinton’s domestic and international economic policy agenda during his first term in office. As the Administration’s top economic adviser she managed all economic policy-making throughout the executive branch. Dr Tyson also served as a member of the President’s National Security Council and Domestic Policy Council. Prior to her appointment as National Economic Adviser, Dr Tyson served as the sixteenth Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the first woman to hold that post since the Council’s establishment in 1946. In that capacity she was responsible for providing the President and his National Economic Council with advice and analysis on all economic policy matters, for preparing the Administration’s economic forecasts and for the annual Economic Report of the President.

Before joining the Clinton Administration, Dr Tyson published a number of books and articles on industrial competitiveness and trade, including the influential book Who’s Bashing Whom? Trade Conflict in High Technology Industries. She also published several books and articles on the economies of Central Europe and their transition to market systems.

In January 2003, the UK’s Department of Trade and Industry appointed Dr Tyson Chair of a special Task Force on Non-Executive Directors, following work done by Derek Higgs in his Review of the Role and Effectiveness of Non-Executive Directors. In June 2003, The Tyson Report on the Recruitment and Development of Non-Executive Directors was published, shortly before the publication of the revised UK Combined Code (July 2003).

Dr Tyson has a summa cum laude undergraduate degree from Smith College (1969) and a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1974). She is a member of the Boards of the Brookings Institution, Bruegel, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Institute of International Economics, Eastman Kodak Company, Morgan Stanley Company, and AT&T.