Senior
Advisors

Michael Spence is a world authority on growth in developing countries and on the convergence between advanced and developing economies. He is the Philip H. Knight Dean Emeritus in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is an Adjunct Professor at Bocconi University in Milan.  In 2001, Mike received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his path breaking work in the field of information economics.

Mike has served on a number of public and private company Boards, including the Boards of Bank of America, General Mills, Genpact Ltd., Nike, Siebel Systems, Sun Microsystems and MercadoLibre, Inc. He was a member of the Board of the Stanford Management Company, which manages the Stanford University endowment, and the International Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation. He is a Senior Advisor to both Jasper Ridge Partners and General Atlantic Partners. Mike co-chairs (with Dr. Victor Fung) the Advisory Council of the Asia Global Institute and was the Chairman of The Independent Commission on Growth and Development (2006-2010). He is a member of the Advisory Council for the Luohan Academy in Hangzhou.  He served as Dean of the Stanford Business School from 1990 to 1999 and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University from 1984 to 1990.

Mike earned his undergraduate degree in Philosophy at Princeton summa cum laude, and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford, where he earned an MA in Mathematics. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics at Harvard. Mike taught at Stanford as an Associate Professor of Economics from 1973 to 1975. From 1975 to 1990, he served as Professor of Economics and Business Administration at Harvard, holding a joint appointment in the Business School and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In 1983 he was named Chairman of the Economics Department and George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration. Mike was awarded the John Kenneth Galbraith Prize for excellence in teaching and the John Bates Clark Medal for a "significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge." The Clark Medal was awarded, at that time, every two years to an Economist under the age of 40.