Diane C. Swonk (born April 8, 1962)

ource needed The Ource () is a long river in northeastern France, a right tributary of the river Seine. Its source is in the Haute-Marne department, 2 km south of Poinson-lès-Grancey. It flows generally northwest. It joins the Seine at Bar-sur-Seine ...

/ref> is an American economic advisor and

chief economist Chief economist is a single-position job class having primary responsibility for the development, coordination, and production of economic and financial analysis. It is distinguished from the other economist positions by the broader scope of respons ...

at KPMG US.

Early life and education

Swonk was born in

Kalamazoo Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in the southwest region of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Kalamazoo County. At the 2010 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 74,262. Kalamazoo is the major city of the Kalamazoo-Portage Metropolit ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

. She studied economics at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, where she obtained a Bachelor's degree in 1984, followed by a master's degree, in 1985. She also holds an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

in finance from the Booth School of Business at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. She is

dyslexic Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...

, and has spoken publicly on how she considers this to have affected her work.

Career

Swonk started her career at the age of 22 when she joined First Chicago Corporation in 1985 as an associate economist, becoming "widely regarded as one of the premier forecasters of the U.S. economy" by the turn of the century. The bank later merged with Banc One Corporation to become

Bank One Bank One Corporation was an American bank founded in 1968 and at its peak the sixth-largest bank in the United States. It traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol ONE. The company merged with JPMorgan Chase & Co. on July 1, 2 ...

. Swonk rose to become director of Economics and senior vice president, prior to leaving the firm in 2004. Lodged at a nearby New York

Marriott World Trade Center The Marriott World Trade Center was a 22-story, 825-room hotel at 3 World Trade Center within the World Trade Center complex in Manhattan, New York City. It opened in April 1981 as the Vista International Hotel and was the first major hotel t ...

hotel to attend an annual

National Association for Business Economics The National Association for Business Economics (NABE) is the largest international association of applied economists, strategists, academics, and policy-makers committed to the application of economics. Founded in 1959, it is one of the member o ...

(NABE) conference at the time; her economic focus shifted from pure numeracy following the events of

9/11 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

, as she then ascertained economics to be equally influenced by social as by financial policy. Swonk joined the faculty of

Kellstadt Graduate School of Business The Charles H. Kellstadt Graduate School of Business is part of the DePaul University Driehaus College of Business, a business school located in the Chicago Loop, Illinois, United States. The Driehaus College of Business (called the College of ...

DePaul University DePaul University is a private university, private, Catholic higher education, Catholic research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Congregation of the Mission, Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th-centu ...

, as a clinical professor of finance that year. In November 2004, Swonk was appointed chief economist and senior managing director at

Mesirow Financial Mesirow is a financial services company based in Chicago, Illinois. The firm is employee-owned and 100% of voting shares are held by employees. It provides investment management, capital markets, wealth management and investment banking services. ...

. She spent 11 years at the firm, before leaving in 2016 to found her private consulting firm, DS Economics, where she serves as CEO. Swonk was appointed chief economist of

Grant Thornton Grant Thornton is the world's seventh-largest by revenue and sixth-largest by number of employees professional services network of independent accounting and consulting member firms which provide assurance, tax and advisory services to private ...

, LLP in January 2018. In July 2022,

KPMG KPMG International Limited (or simply KPMG) is a multinational professional services network, and one of the Big Four accounting organizations. Headquartered in Amstelveen, Netherlands, although incorporated in London, England, KPMG is a net ...

US appointed her as its chief economist. Swonk is a Fellow of the

NABE ''Nabemono'' (鍋物, なべ物, ''nabe'' "cooking pot" + ''mono'' "thing"), or simply ''nabe'', is a variety of Japanese hot pot dishes, also known as one pot dishes and "things in a pot". Description Nabemono are stews and soups containing ...

, serving as its president from 1999-2000. Swonk is also 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 ...

Works

''The Passionate Economist: Finding the Power and Humanity Behind the Numbers''
(2003)
''The Economic Outlook and Undercurrents in the Consumer Credit Market''
(1997)
''The Great Lakes Economy Revisited''

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (informally the Chicago Fed) is one of twelve regional Reserve Banks that, along with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, make up the United States' central bank. The Chicago Reserve Bank serves the Sevent ...

(1996)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Swonk, Diane 21st-century American economists American women economists University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni University of Chicago alumni People from Kalamazoo, Michigan Living people 1962 births 21st-century American women Scientists with dyslexia