Karin Lissakers

Karin Lissakers is Director of the Revenue Watch Institute. She continues to serve as an advisor to George Soros on globalization and other matters.

Lissakers has held senior posts in the U.S. government, academia and several think tanks. She was United States Executive Director on the Board of the International Monetary Fund from 1993 to 2001, representing the Fund’s largest shareholder during a period of turmoil in international markets and a U.S.-led campaign to redesign the international financial architecture and reform the IMF, including opening its policies and practices to public scrutiny.

Lissakers has served as deputy director of the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State and was staff director of the foreign economic policy subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the first woman to hold such a post.

She taught at Columbia University for many years, lecturing on international financial markets, regulation and public policy and heading the international business and banking studies program at the graduate School of International and Public Affairs. Her research and writing have focused on the interplay of international business and U.S. foreign policy. She has been a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a researcher for Nobel economist Gunnar Myrdal.

Lissakers is a frequent public speaker and participant in public policy, business and academic conferences. She is the author of Banks, Borrowers and the Establishment (Basic Books 1991) about the 1980’s international debt crisis. Her articles have appeared in Foreign Policy, the Journal of International Affairs, The New York Times, the Washington Post and other publications. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is married with two children.