Antonio Francesco Weiss (born September 28, 1966) is a policymaker, financier, and former publisher. He is currently a senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at
Harvard’s Kennedy School.
Weiss served as the Counselor to the Secretary of the US Treasury from January 2015 to January 2017 where he advised on domestic and international issues, including financial markets, regulatory reform, job creation, and fostering broad-based economic growth. In 2016, Weiss led the Obama Administration’s response to the financial crisis in Puerto Rico and helped broker the
Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act
The Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) is a U.S. federal law enacted in 2016 that established a financial oversight board, a process for restructuring debt, and expedited procedures for approving critical in ...
.
He was previously head of investment banking for
Lazard
Lazard Ltd (formerly known as Lazard Frères & Co.) is a financial advisory and asset management firm that engages in investment banking, asset management and other financial services, primarily with institutional clients. It is the world's lar ...
, a global financial advisory and asset management firm. He is a former publisher and senior editor of
the Paris Review
''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...
, where he apprenticed to founder and editor
George Plimpton
George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 – September 25, 2003) was an American writer. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found ''The Paris Review'', as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. He was also known for " ...
.
Education
Weiss attended
Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
and received his MBA at
Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...
, where he was a
Baker Scholar
Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...
and a Loeb Fellow in Finance.
Banking career
Weiss joined Lazard in New York in 1994 and became a partner in 1998. From 2001 to 2009, Weiss was based in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
where he served as a vice chairman of European investment banking, and subsequently global head of mergers and acquisitions.
In 2009, Weiss moved back to the U.S. and was named the global head of investment banking for Lazard.
U.S. Treasury
After his nomination to be undersecretary of domestic finance at the Treasury Department was opposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Weiss served the Treasury as an unofficial advisor, beginning in early 2015. In 2016, as a public debt crisis brought Puerto Rico to the brink of default, Weiss helped to broker a U.S. law to allow the commonwealth to restructure its $70 billion in debt under the supervision of an oversight board. Weiss testified before both chambers of Congress to explain PROMESA and the Obama Administration's plan to address the Puerto Rican debt crisis. The law was criticized on the right by fiscal conservatives unhappy with the possible cost to U.S. taxpayers and on the left by advocates for workers and for Puerto Rican autonomy, but was heralded as "the only piece of major economic policy to pass Congress" to date in 2016.
After the October 15, 2014 "
flash crash", Weiss led Treasury's role in the joint regulatory review of the irregularity.
In recognition of his achievements at the
Treasury
A treasury is either
*A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry.
*A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or in p ...
, he was presented the Alexander Hamilton Award, the department's highest order.
Affiliations
Weiss is a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, mi ...
, a director of the
Volker Alliance, and a director of the
French-American Foundation
The French-American Foundation is a privately funded, non-governmental organization established to promote bilateral relations between France and the United States on topics of importance to the two countries, with a focus on contact between upco ...
. Prior to joining the US Treasury, Weiss was a trustee of
The Frick Collection
The Frick Collection is an art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection (normally at the Henry Clay Frick House, currently at the Frick Madison) features Old Master paintings and European fine and decorative arts, including works by B ...
.
Publications
Weiss co-authored the December, 2012 Center for American Progress report, “Reforming Our Tax System, Reducing Our Deficit,” which recommended a more progressive tax regime and a balanced approach to long-term
debt reduction and the May 2017 Peterson Institute report, “The Financial Stability Oversight Council: An Essential Role for the Evolving U.S. Financial System”, which discussed the importance of the Council in the face of pressure to limit its authorities. He also authored "A proposal to tax financial transactions" in January 2020, which recommends the implementation of a new financial transaction tax on assets including
stocks
Stocks are feet restraining devices that were used as a form of corporal punishment and public humiliation. The use of stocks is seen as early as Ancient Greece, where they are described as being in use in Solon's law code. The law describing ...
,
bonds, and
derivatives
The derivative of a function is the rate of change of the function's output relative to its input value.
Derivative may also refer to:
In mathematics and economics
* Brzozowski derivative in the theory of formal languages
* Formal derivative, an ...
, to raise revenue for the federal government.
He is a frequent contributor on public policy to various publications, including
Foreign Affairs
''Foreign Affairs'' is an American magazine of international relations and U.S. foreign policy published by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership organization and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and ...
,
Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to:
People
* Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer
* Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian
* Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and ma ...
,
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
, and
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
.
Personal life
Weiss married
Susannah Hunnewell in 1993. He lives with their three sons in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. Weiss is the son of
Piero Weiss Piero Weiss (January 26, 1928 – October 2, 2011) was an Italian-American pianist and musicologist. Born in Trieste, his mother was a symphony violinist and the niece of novelist Italo Svevo. In 1938, at the age of 10, he fled Fascist Italy wi ...
and Carole Severson Weiss.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weiss, Antonio
1966 births
Businesspeople from New York City
Harvard Business School alumni
Living people
New York (state) Democrats
United States Department of the Treasury officials
Yale College alumni