The NDTO is thrilled to announce that economics expert and award-winning author Zachary Karabell will speak at our Global Business Awards Dinner on June 3, 2026. Register for the Global Business Connections Conference and Awards Dinner here: Global Business Connections Conference – North Dakota Trade Office
About Zachary Karabell
In a world full of noise, Zachary Karabell brings a unique perspective as both a doer and thinker who has the pulse on the major trends shaping our world today. The author of more than a dozen books on business, economic trends, politics and history, and a prolific commentator in both print and on television, he has helped manage, advise, and invest in companies globally. With a career ranging from China to the Middle East to the United States, he has watched the world evolve over the past twenty years and speaks to the forces that will shape our world, and your business, now and in the years to come. Named one of the World Economic Forum’s “Global Leaders for Tomorrow,” his prolific, award-winning writing career, illustrious background on Wall Street, and PhD from Harvard give him a unique, multifaceted perspective of what’s going on in the world, from politics and the economy to international relations. He writes his weekly Edgy Optimist column on Substack, and his expertise is regularly sought-after by top national media. He is exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau.
Zachary Karabell is edgy, upbeat, at times humorous, and always provocative as he offers audiences hard-hitting insights on the current global environment. With a bright personality and a quick wit, he presents a positive view of what’s to come and shows that optimism is a vital ingredient in capitalizing on current opportunities. Despite multiple domestic and global challenges, Karabell sees a world that continues to be buffeted and moved by technology, demography, and a rapidly growing global middle class. These changes are accelerating, not halting and not reversing, and they provide incredible opportunities for those willing to understand them and design strategies to meet them, and massive risks to those who are not. From the interconnectedness of the world’s financial markets all the way down to how government policy affects American business, he addresses the trends that will most affect our businesses and lives in the years to come and challenges common assumptions in the discussion of global trends.
Karabell was the head of global strategies at Envestnet, a publicly traded financial services firm. Prior to that, he was the executive vice president and chief economist at Fred Alger Management and president of Fred Alger and Company. A recognized authority on the emergence of China in the global economy, he served as the portfolio manager of the China-U.S. growth fund, which won a five-star designation from Morningstar. He was executive vice president of Alger’s Spectra Funds, which launched the Spectra Green Fund based on the idea that profit and sustainability are linked, and served as the former vice chairman of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.
He is the author of more than a dozen books including Inside Money: Brown Brothers Harriman and the American Way of Power, exploring the history of the legendary private investment firm Brown Brothers Harriman and its central role in the story of American wealth.
His previous books include The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World—tackling the limitations of metrics like GDP and inflation and taps into the power of data to answer the important questions about our economy—and The Last Campaign, which won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Award for “Best Non-fiction Book of the Year.” He now writes regularly for The Washington Post and has contributed to the Daily Beast, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, Newsweek, TIME magazine, the Financial Times, the New Republic, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and Foreign Affairs.
The founder of the Progress Network at New America and president of River Twice Capital, Karabell sits on the board of PEN America, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is the Chairman of the Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group.