George P. Shultz is a native of New York City and graduated from Princeton University in 1942. After serving in the Marine Corps (1942–45), he earned a PhD in industrial economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Shultz taught at MIT and, in 1955, served as a senior staff economist on President Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisers. In 1957, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, where he became dean in 1962.

From 1968 to 1969, he was a fellow at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He was appointed US secretary of labor in 1969, director of the Office of Management and Budget in 1970, and secretary of the Treasury in 1972. From 1974 to 1982, he was president of Bechtel Group. Shultz served as chairman of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board (1981–82) and as secretary of state (1982–89). In 1989, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

After leaving office, Shultz rejoined the Bechtel Group as director and senior counselor. He also returned to Stanford as a professor of international economics at the Graduate School of Business and as a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution. Shultz is the author of numerous books and articles, including Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (1993), Issues on My Mind (2013), and Learning from Experience (2016). He is one of the editors of Beyond Disruption: Technology’s Challenge to Governance (2018), and his most recent book is Thinking about the Future (2019).

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