Jeremy Rifkin President of the Foundation on Economic Trends

2006 J. C. GREER DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER SERIES: JEREMY RIFKIN

Jeremy Rifkin will serve as the speaker for this year’s event. Rifkin is the founder and president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and is also the author of seventeen books on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, workforce, society and environment. His books have been translated into more than thirty languages and are used in hundreds of universities, corporations and government agencies around the world.

Rifkin has more than twenty years of personal experience working in Europe, where he advised heads of state and political parties, consulted with Europe’s leading companies and helped initiate grass-roots, environmental and social justice campaigns. In addition, the 2004 revised edition of his 1995 international best-seller, The End of Work, is widely credited with helping shape the current global debate on technology displacement, corporate downsizing and the future of jobs.

Rifkin has been influential in shaping public policy in the United States and around the world. The National Journal named Rifkin as one of 150 people in the U.S. that have the most influence in shaping federal government policy.

Rifkin holds a degree in economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a degree in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He has lectured at more than 500 universities in approximately 25 countries within the past 30 years. Since 1994, Rifkin has been a fellow at the Wharton School’s Executive Education Program, where he lectures to CEOs and senior corporate management about new trends in science and technology and their impacts on the global economy, society and environment.