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Left: Charles de Segundo, HBS Century Club, presents a certificate of appreciation to Dr. Lawrence H. Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and former Harvard University President, who visited the Club on October 1, 2007.
Right: John Clarkeson (HBS '66) chairman emeritus of The Boston Consulting Group who hosted the evening, introduced the Dr. Summers.
Right: John Clarkeson (HBS '66) chairman emeritus of The Boston Consulting Group who hosted the evening, introduced the Dr. Summers.
Dr. Larry Summers
is guest of the the HBS Century Club
October
1, 2007
Reception
with Dr. Larry Summers
Charles Hotel, Harvard Square
Charles Hotel, Harvard Square
Dr. Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University, was the guest of the HBS Century Club at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge on October 1, 2007. Fifty new student members of the Century Club visited with Dr. Summers in the “up close and personal” style, which has distinguished the Club since its founding in 1933. The event marked the kick-off the HBS Century Club’s 75th anniversary year. --(continued below)
(Continued from above)--Dr. Summers was introduced by Mr. John Clarkeson, chairman emeritus of the Boston Consulting Group, the event’s exclusive sponsor. Noting Dr. Summers’ extraordinary ability to articulate complex, cutting edge views (Summers was a nationally ranked high school debating champion,) Mr. Clarkeson quipped that one should avoid being on a panel discussion with Summers because, “even when he agrees with you, he makes your point better than you do.” Dr. Summers demonstrated his considerable persuasion skills as he addressed the students and responded to questions for 90 minutes, wrapping his forthright views in a polished, diplomatic delivery.
Many of the HBS Century Club student members were interested in Dr. Summers' career path, a rise to the top in two different fields (academia and policy making.) He started the description of his career path by joking that when he was a graduate student at Harvard, “I wrote on a legal pad, ‘Professor at Harvard, Chief Economist of the World Bank, Secretary of the Treasury, and President of Harvard University’ – all the rest was execution.” The students loved it, and when the laughter died down, Dr. Summers added more seriously, “There was no plan. But there was a sense of always trying to be doing something or taking positions or advancing the debate, and nudging things along in ways wouldn’t have happened anyway.”
To rapt attention, Dr. Summers encouraged the Club members to avoid making “comfortable choices” with their careers – never to take a job because it is customary for a career path. He recounted writing Harvard the letter by which he resigned tenure in order to accept the position of President Clinton’s Undersecretary of the Treasury (in the introduction, John Clarkeson had mentioned that Summers had received tenure at age 28, the youngest ever to do so in the modern history of Harvard University.) Although Summers knew the ways of Washington (having served President Reagan on the Council of Economic Advisors, having been an advisor to presidential candidate Mike Dukakis, and having been Chief Economist of the World Bank) Summers was taking a huge career risk in resigning tenure at Harvard. Yet, he recounted that taking the risk led to greater successes benefiting tens of millions of people in the United States and abroad, including recommending and shepherding the enormously successful U.S. intervention in the 1995 Mexican financial crisis and dealing with the 1997 Asian economic crisis. Dr. Summers eventually became President Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury
(Dr. Summers is once again tenured as a University Professor, the most prestigious of Harvard’s faculty designations.)
A passionate advocate for international trade, Dr. Summers was the point man for several major trade initiatives including NAFTA,which he said more often than not, reduced Mexican and Canadian trade barriers to match lower existing U.S. levels. Dr. Summers is equally passionate about what he sees as the responsibility of governments around the world (including that of the United States) to address the needs of the middle and lower classes, especially in the areas of education and health care. He sees international trade and the international organizations that regulate it as twin pillars in global prosperity. “Unfortunately, we have one party that is distrustful of international trade and another party that is distrustful of international organizations,” he said with an incisive and disarming humor that consistently resonated with the audience and drew approving laughter.
He believes Americans should be concerned with the disproportionate skew of wealth creation favoring the already ultra-wealthy (he illustrated the point with hard data he recited without notes.) Dr. Summers is also disturbed with what he views as insufficient progressivity in the U.S. federal tax system, as well as U.S. fiscal policy that he asserts under-invests in education and heath care programs targeting the poor and middle class. He recalled from his days at World Bank that often a highest return investment priority in a developing country was in education, especially education for women, minorities and the less affluent.
He said it is equally true for the United States and other developed countries competing in the global economy. Dr. Summers is skeptical of what he sees as public shows of social responsibility by some corporations. “I have a certain ambivalence about some of the heroic activism I see among some corporations, Summers said. “It’s important to dig deep beneath these social responsibility campaigns
and to take a look at how they are really are operating and how they are trying to affect public policy.”
He sees the need to address climate change as a moral and intellectual imperative. “I am absolutely convinced by the data I have seen,” he said.
Dr. Summers concluded by putting the current pace of change into historical perspective (using a human lifetime as one unit of measure). “I doubt in the seventy five years of the Century Club, there has been a more exciting moment to study at the Harvard Business School, then to leave Harvard Business School and to seek to make your mark on the world. There has never been a moment where there was more opportunity to do good and to do well simultaneously.” he said. “But, there has also rarely if ever been a moment when there has been so much risk. Those of our generation, those of John (Clarkeson’s) generation, will be watching what you all do.”
Thanking Dr. Summers for a wonderful and memorable evening, Jet Hollander, HBS Century Club alumni president said later, “Dr. Larry Summers is an extraordinary example of one with the curiosity, brainpower, integrity, and unbridled courage that leads to better lives for hundreds of millions of people. He is a thinker and a doer, in the grandest sense of those words. His fertile mind and well supported observations compel our nation's, and the world's attention."
Many of the HBS Century Club student members were interested in Dr. Summers' career path, a rise to the top in two different fields (academia and policy making.) He started the description of his career path by joking that when he was a graduate student at Harvard, “I wrote on a legal pad, ‘Professor at Harvard, Chief Economist of the World Bank, Secretary of the Treasury, and President of Harvard University’ – all the rest was execution.” The students loved it, and when the laughter died down, Dr. Summers added more seriously, “There was no plan. But there was a sense of always trying to be doing something or taking positions or advancing the debate, and nudging things along in ways wouldn’t have happened anyway.”
To rapt attention, Dr. Summers encouraged the Club members to avoid making “comfortable choices” with their careers – never to take a job because it is customary for a career path. He recounted writing Harvard the letter by which he resigned tenure in order to accept the position of President Clinton’s Undersecretary of the Treasury (in the introduction, John Clarkeson had mentioned that Summers had received tenure at age 28, the youngest ever to do so in the modern history of Harvard University.) Although Summers knew the ways of Washington (having served President Reagan on the Council of Economic Advisors, having been an advisor to presidential candidate Mike Dukakis, and having been Chief Economist of the World Bank) Summers was taking a huge career risk in resigning tenure at Harvard. Yet, he recounted that taking the risk led to greater successes benefiting tens of millions of people in the United States and abroad, including recommending and shepherding the enormously successful U.S. intervention in the 1995 Mexican financial crisis and dealing with the 1997 Asian economic crisis. Dr. Summers eventually became President Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury
(Dr. Summers is once again tenured as a University Professor, the most prestigious of Harvard’s faculty designations.)
A passionate advocate for international trade, Dr. Summers was the point man for several major trade initiatives including NAFTA,which he said more often than not, reduced Mexican and Canadian trade barriers to match lower existing U.S. levels. Dr. Summers is equally passionate about what he sees as the responsibility of governments around the world (including that of the United States) to address the needs of the middle and lower classes, especially in the areas of education and health care. He sees international trade and the international organizations that regulate it as twin pillars in global prosperity. “Unfortunately, we have one party that is distrustful of international trade and another party that is distrustful of international organizations,” he said with an incisive and disarming humor that consistently resonated with the audience and drew approving laughter.
He believes Americans should be concerned with the disproportionate skew of wealth creation favoring the already ultra-wealthy (he illustrated the point with hard data he recited without notes.) Dr. Summers is also disturbed with what he views as insufficient progressivity in the U.S. federal tax system, as well as U.S. fiscal policy that he asserts under-invests in education and heath care programs targeting the poor and middle class. He recalled from his days at World Bank that often a highest return investment priority in a developing country was in education, especially education for women, minorities and the less affluent.
He said it is equally true for the United States and other developed countries competing in the global economy. Dr. Summers is skeptical of what he sees as public shows of social responsibility by some corporations. “I have a certain ambivalence about some of the heroic activism I see among some corporations, Summers said. “It’s important to dig deep beneath these social responsibility campaigns
and to take a look at how they are really are operating and how they are trying to affect public policy.”
He sees the need to address climate change as a moral and intellectual imperative. “I am absolutely convinced by the data I have seen,” he said.
Dr. Summers concluded by putting the current pace of change into historical perspective (using a human lifetime as one unit of measure). “I doubt in the seventy five years of the Century Club, there has been a more exciting moment to study at the Harvard Business School, then to leave Harvard Business School and to seek to make your mark on the world. There has never been a moment where there was more opportunity to do good and to do well simultaneously.” he said. “But, there has also rarely if ever been a moment when there has been so much risk. Those of our generation, those of John (Clarkeson’s) generation, will be watching what you all do.”
Thanking Dr. Summers for a wonderful and memorable evening, Jet Hollander, HBS Century Club alumni president said later, “Dr. Larry Summers is an extraordinary example of one with the curiosity, brainpower, integrity, and unbridled courage that leads to better lives for hundreds of millions of people. He is a thinker and a doer, in the grandest sense of those words. His fertile mind and well supported observations compel our nation's, and the world's attention."
