Thursday, April 1, 2021

Bill Gates

Co-Chair, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Founder, Breakthrough Energy

Hank Paulson

Founder & Chairman, The Paulson Institute
74th US Treasury Secretary

Video is available for members-only one week after the event date

Moderator:
Becky Quick, Trustee, The Economic Club of New York
Co-Anchor, Squawk Box and On The Money, CNBC

Bill Gates

Bill Gates is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and founder of Breakthrough Energy. In 1975, Bill Gates founded Microsoft with Paul Allen and led the company to become the worldwide leader in business and personal software and services. In 2008, Bill transitioned to focus full-time on his foundation's work to expand opportunity to the world's most disadvantaged people. Along with co-chair Melinda Gates, he leads the foundation's development of strategies and sets the overall direction of the organization. At Breakthrough Energy, he's putting his experience as an innovator and problem-solver to work to address climate change by supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs, big thinkers, and clean technologies.

Bill uses his experience partnering with global leaders across sectors to help drive the policy, market, and technological changes required for a clean energy transition. In 2010, Bill, Melinda, and Warren Buffett founded the Giving Pledge, an effort to encourage the wealthiest families and individuals to publicly commit more than half of their wealth to philanthropic causes and charitable organizations during their lifetime or in their will.

Hank Paulson

Hank Paulson is executive chairman of TPG Rise Climate, the climate investing platform of the global private equity firm TPG. He is also the founder and chairman of the Paulson Institute, which aims to foster a more balanced and productive US-China relationship focusing at the intersection of green finance, conservation, and economics. Paulson is the co-chair of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, and co-chair of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum Advisory Board. Paulson served as the 74th Secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush. Prior to that, he had a thirty-two year career at Goldman Sachs, ultimately serving as chairman and chief executive officer. A lifelong conservationist, Paulson was Chairman of The Nature Conservancy Board of Directors and, prior to that, founded and co-chaired the organization's Asia-Pacific Council. He also founded and co-chaired the Latin American Conservation Council. In addition, he co-chaired the Risky Business Project, a non-partisan initiative that quantified and publicized the economic risks of climate change in the United States. Paulson is the author of the best sellers On the Brink and Dealing with China. He is also the co-author of two books with Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner, First Responders and Firefighting. Paulson graduated from Dartmouth College and received an M.B.A. from Harvard University.