The Economic Club of Kansas City
About Us
We provide a structured forum for engaging the Kansas City Metro area’s business leaders with world-class thinkers on critical issues in business, economics, and finance. The Club is nonpolitical, nonpartisan, and nonprofit and takes no side on any issue considered in its forum.
Our Programs
The Club hosts several programs a year featuring keynote presentations by renowned thought leaders. Every other year, we host the award ceremony for the Truman Medal for Economic Policy.
Upcoming Programs
May 2021
Chris Wright
CEO and Chairman, Liberty Oilfield Services
Mr. Wright will address the state of and prospects for the energy industry.
Mr. Wright has had a lifelong passion for energy and its role in human life. He was the founder and CEO from 1992–2006 of Pinnacle Technologies, which created the hydraulic fracture mapping industry. Pinnacle’s innovations in fracturing practices helped launch commercial shale gas production in the late 1990s. Mr. Wright has consulted and taught courses on all six inhabited continents, authored/co-authored over 60 technical papers and articles, and spoken on energy to the UK House of Lords, the States Attorneys General, and Federal and State Judges.
June 2021
Catherine Mann
Managing Director and Global Chief Economist, Citibank
Ms. Mann will discuss the outlook and key issues for global trade and policy.
As Citibank’s Global Chief Economist, Ms. Mann is responsible for thought leadership, research guidance of a global team of economists, and cross-fertilization of research across macroeconomics, fixed-income, and equities. She previously served as Chief Economist at the OECD, and prior to that was a professor at Brandeis University’s International Business School. She also spent 20+ years in Washington, DC at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and the World Bank. Her written work includes more than 85 scholarly articles and seven books primarily on the topics of US external imbalances, trade, international capital flows and the dollar, and information technology and services trade in global markets.
Recent Programs
March 2021
David Lam
Director of the Institute for Social Research, Professor in the Department of Economics, and Research Professor in the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan.
Mr. Lam will explore the demographic factors underlying economic activity at home and abroad.
A leading authority on the demography of the global labor market, Mr. Lam has addressed the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, the United Nations Commission on Population and Development, the U.S. Department of Treasury, the African Development Bank, and the World Bank. He is a Professor in the Department of Economics and a Research Professor in the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan. He is also Honorary Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
January 2021
Esther George
President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
Ms. George will provide an in-depth perspective on the nation’s economic outlook.
As president and CEO of the Kansas City Fed, Ms. George leads a workforce of nearly 2000 employees located at offices in Kansas City, Omaha, Denver, and Oklahoma City. The Kansas City Fed is responsible for conducting monetary policy, providing financial services to depository institutions, and supervising nearly 1,000 banking organizations in its seven-state region. In 2019, Ms. George served as a voting member on the Federal Reserve’s policymaking body, the Federal Open Market Committee. She also leads the Federal Reserve System’s efforts to modernize the U.S. payments system to enhance the security and speed of transactions across the banking system.
Membership
Club members are leading organizations in the Kansas City metropolitan area, including Lawrence and Topeka, Kansas. The organizations are represented by the chief executive officer, chief financial officer, or other high organization official.
Membership is by invitation only. Invitations are extended without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, or disability.
