Lord Jim O’NeillEx-Chairman, Goldman Sachs AM
Jim O’Neill is an internationally published economist, and until 2013 was Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, having previously been the organisation’s Head of Economic Research. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1995, after 13 years working in the City of London for the Swiss Bank Corporation, the Marine Midland Bank, and Bank of America.Jim is particularly well-known for his work in relation to developing economies, having been one of the earliest (and most prominent) economic commentators to identify the enormous potential for growth by middle income countries during the first half of the 21st century. In 2001, Jim published his influential Building Better Global BRICs research paper, which was credited with coining the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) acronym, and foresaw the radical shift in global economic power away from the established western economies towards these rapidly-expanding economies. Jim O'Neill was made a Life Peer and member of the House of Lords in May 2015 as Lord O’Neill of Gatley. He served as the Commercial Secretary to HM Treasury from May 2015 until September 2016 before leaving the government.