Global Interdependence Center Legacy Project
Written by Elizabeth Sweet December 2022
Who We Are
Given that the world is an interdependent place, how can we optimize outcomes for all nations, all people, and our shared future? The Global Interdependence Center exists to help the world answer that question.
Founded in 1976, the GIC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides a neutral and safe forum for thoughtful dialogues that address challenges and opportunities facing the global community. It invites participants to consider issues that have collective impacts and to address the vulnerabilities and realize the opportunities that global interdependence entails.
The GIC is not a think tank, as other familiar organizations are, chiefly because there is no walled “tank” that contains or excludes perspectives. There is no partisan framework around which participants bend every issue, every conversation, or every solution. It is an invitation, instead, to participate in a thinking community that leans in to listen to richly diverse perspectives and to look for new understandings that can lead to shared solutions.
The GIC leverages the power of networks, ideas, and capacities for influence and action. If networks can be represented visually as connected points of light, imagine the power of dialogue as layering these webs of light crisscrossed in three-dimensional space a kinetic neural network of global ideas, understandings, and partnerships.
Interactions among members and participants foster a community of people of goodwill who think deeply together about issues that matter. The GIC community encompasses economists, bankers, central bankers, investors and investment advisors, analysts, businesspersons, academics, leaders in the nonprofit world, and other likeminded individuals.
Dialogue… is a conversation with a center, not sides. It is a way of taking the energy of our differences and channeling it toward something that has never been created before. It lifts us out of polarization and into a greater common sense, and is thereby a means for accessing the intelligence and coordinated power of groups of people….
The intention of dialogue is to reach new understanding and, in doing so, to form a totally new basis from which to think and act…. We do not merely try to reach agreement, we try to create a context from which many new agreements might come. And we seek to uncover a base of shared meaning that can greatly help coordinate and align our actions with our values.
William Isaacs, Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together
GIC’s Mission Statement
GIC brings together a network of international experts in policymaking, central banking, industry, and academia to explore issues and policies concerning global interdependence that impacts world economies and quality of life. We provide a neutral, nonpartisan forum to expand awareness, advance shared interests, and promote social stewardship. Our College of Central Bankers provides a distinguished forum for former leaders of monetary policymaking organizations to share their insights and thought leadership on critical issues facing central banking and global monetary policy.
What GIC Does
To accomplish this mission, GIC organizes country and region-specific meetings, conferences, and briefings for educational and networking opportunities. It promotes global partnerships among governments, non-governmental organizations, corporations, businesses, and academic and research institutions. GIC also prides itself on sharing its findings with policymakers and the press worldwide. Its signature in-person gatherings are now supplemented by a broad palette of online programming.
Historically, GIC has maintained a central focus on issues of global economic interdependence trade, finance, and monetary policy That focus is both global and country-specific. Programming cultivates positive relationships among countries and explores solutions to challenges.
Programming also embraces other topics fundamental to global interdependence, each with economic implications: global health, including disease threats from SARS to H5N1 to Covid and long Covid; climate change; food and water; diversity, equity, and inclusion; cryptocurrencies; and geopolitics GIC’s role in its thematic programming is, in part, to break down the silos between disciplines. Interdependencies cut across nations and societies, but they also cut across disciplines and issues.
“Once upon a time, monetary policy, trade, and fiscal policy were the bailiwick of economists, right? And financial markets and their interest. But now there are all integrated. Climate change is food security; food security is stability in politics. There are many more pieces that are integrated now.”
– Michael Drury, Chief Economist, McVean
Trading
GIC can serve (and has served) as a neutral convener of dialogue when what is needed is to construct a safe space, sometimes in difficult circumstances, with the right people at the table.
Membership and Involvement
“The magic of GIC was convening like-minded thinkers of an ecumenical nature to get together and try to solve the problems of our times…. We don't always agree about much of anything except good food. But we have that spirit of ‘let’s find the right answer’. The right answer should emerge to the top. So we, to the extent we can…, try to leave our egos at the door and search for the right answer. And that’s the beauty of the GIC throughout its history.” – Paul McCulley, Senior Fellow in Financial Macroeconomics, Cornell Law School
As to why GIC members join, stay, and step up to take roles of responsibility and leadership, certain themes emerge. First, the caliber of the programs, the importance of the issues, and the dialogue among expert voices ensure what David Kotok terms “a Davos-level assembly” focused on issues of global and societal interdependence.
GIC members, from businesspeople to analysts to central bankers, cite access to a community of minds belonging to people of good intent, working in different spaces, supporting each other in making connections that transcend “networking” to become lifelong relationships, and leveraging members’ own networks to accomplish goals.
A Bold Vision for the Future
Looking forward, the GIC aims to design and deliver programs that deepen the organization’s global influence and demonstrate measurable impacts, to design and implement quantitative and qualitative ways to measure those impacts, and to continue to expand its programs thematically and geographically.
Beginning in 2021, the GIC entered a major three-year capacity growth phase comprising five elements:
▪ The combination of live and virtual programming initiatives
▪ The development of thematic programs/events
▪ The growth and alignment of the College of Central Bankers with the GIC organization
▪ The buildup of a development plan
▪ The expansion and diversification of the board
As GIC invests in its broad, multidisciplinary programming, teasing out the connections between multiple global issues and global economics, its members point to the critical mission of continually investing in the quality of the people of
“The GIC said, ‘Let’s not be pigeonholed in an agenda. Let’s have certain basic themes – for example, we don’t believe in murder; we don’t believe in protectionism; we’re globalists, not contractionists. We believe in protecting and defending rights of people; we want to make the world a better place.’ So, just some basic tenets….
“‘Let’s assemble folks who think we should get together and have peaceful conversation, even if we have differing views.’ And sometimes good things come out of it. So the good things that come out of it can take various forms. That’s okay. And that’s what’s been happening. And I think GIC then serves a useful purpose.”
– David Kotok, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer, Cumberland Advisors
GIC, who constitute its vision and its capacity. GIC strives to bridge its vision and work to a new generation that is recognized, recruited, valued, mentored, and bestowed with growing responsibility.
The College of Central Bankers
One of GIC’s strongest legacies is its relationship with the central banking community. The GIC’s College of Central Bankers, established in 2018, provides a vital, neutral, nonpartisan platform for former leaders of the world’s central banks to provide thought leadership on important global issues facing economies. As of 2022, 21 fellows represent 15 countries across six continents, reflecting GIC’s commitment to ensuring global representation. CCB Fellows may speak at GIC events, participate in online programming and surveys, and publish their research on GIC platforms.
In 2022, the CCB conducted a series centered around the overarching question of whether national and international policymaking institutions are sufficiently equipped to address the impacts of high debt levels, digital currencies, unsupervised algorithmic trading, inequality, climate change, and changing demographics. This project addressed whether long-standing international accords need to be modified and/or whether new global agreements are necessary. Working collaboratively, the CCB and its community is bringing this discussion and other activities to the global stage, beginning with a series of virtual events.
“I think that we all listen to what Jay [Powell] says or what the governing council the ECB says or whatever. And everybody pays close attention to them, but we also know that they have to be very scripted, because whatever they say moves the markets too much. But the College of Central Bankers are people who aren’t in that position anymore and so therefore can be a little bit more open in the discussion about the challenges of achieving the objective function, inflation and unemployment, a dual mandate, the challenges of achieving that objective function in a world where the financial sector has taken over everything.”
– Catherine Mann,
Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, former Chief Global Economist, Citibank
Signature Programming
International Monetary and Trade Conference
The Global Interdependence Center has convened an International Monetary and Trade Conference most years since 1979, featuring speakers over the years such as Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; noted free-market economists Lawrence Kudlow & Robert Hormats; Lawrence Klein, Nobel laureate economist, University of Pennsylvania; Catherine Mann, Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the
Bank of England; Christian Noyer, Governor of the Banque de France; and regional Federal Reserve bank Presidents Patrick Harker (Philadelphia), William Poole (St. Louis), Anthony Santomero (Philadelphia), and Ed Boehne (Philadelphia).
Rocky Mountain Economic Summit (Wyoming/Idaho)
Since 2011, the Rocky Mountain Economic Summit has become one of GIC’s hallmark events, sponsored in partnership with the Bronze Buffalo Foundation. Recent summits featured sessions on the outlooks for the economy, the markets, and entrepreneurs, COVID, capitalism and democracy, cryptocurrency, cybersecurity and AI, and legacies and leadership.
Camp Kotok
In 2021, the GIC became the organizer, in collaboration with Cumberland Advisors, for Camp Kotok, an annual by-invitation event for prominent economists, wealth managers, traders, heads of research, pundits, financial luminaries, and often a few journalists, authors, and individuals associated with the financial industry. Held at remote Leen’s Lodge in Grand Lake Stream, Maine, this event evolved after David Kotok invited a group of fellow 9/11 survivors to fish, relax, and reflect and everyone wanted to do it again the next year. The financial press styles this gathering as the “Shadow Fed” because of the caliber of expertise brought to presentations and informal discussions there.
International Central Banking Series
GIC’s Central Banking Series has spanned several continents over two decades. The series, which began in Paris, serves as is its oldest international meeting. The Central Banking Series in Paris is now a collaboration between GIC and the Banque de France.
The David R. Kotok Healthcare Series
The David R. Kotok Healthcare Series was launched in 2020 as the world scrambled to grapple with a new pandemic virus and its impacts on health and the world economy This virtual program series focused on the roles health and healthcare policy play in the interdependent global community. As a part of the series, the GIC has launched the “Analyzing Pandemics: Economic and Policy Impacts” executive briefings to explore the 100-year global pandemic event.
In 2022, David Kotok and the Solve Long COVID Initiative launched a second series as a neutral forum to elevate, vet, and share information about changing interdependencies caused by Long COVID’s impact on medical research, health care policy, fiscal policy, monetary policy, finance, trade, politics, and culture.
The Bottom Line of Disabilities Series (Salt Lake City)
A collaboration between GIC and the Columbus Community Center in Salt Lake City, the Bottom Line of Disabilities Series debuted in 2014 and continued through 2019, exploring the economic dimensions of disabilities, workplace development strategies, models of corporate responsibility, and the role of the Fed.
Global Conference Series: Food and Water: Basic Challenges to International Stability (Paris, Singapore, Zambia, and Chile)
In 2009–2010, the GIC partnered with the Banque de France to host a series that explored the food price inflation crisis, the geopolitical ramifications of increased cost and decreased supply, and the impact of the food crisis in the developing world.
Global Conference Series: Financial Interdependence in the World’s Post-Crisis Capital Markets (Hanoi, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Philadelphia, Prague, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki) This 2010–2011 series addressed impacts of the financial crisis, central bank independence, world capital flows, capital market structure, reserve currency status, and fiscal policy changes.
How GIC Works
When GIC members are asked why they get involved, they often point to the way GIC works and what that way of doing makes possible and enjoyable. The “how” is an integral part of their “why.”
The Global Interdependence Center structures its events somewhat differently than many other organizations do. While eminent speakers bring presentations on topics that draw international audiences, GIC’s event organizers build in time for interactions, discussions, and roundtables. Speakers interact with attendees. GIC members enjoy private roundtable dinners in which there is time for people to follow up with questions, to have conversations that range far from the agenda, and to embark on memorable adventures that become favorite stories to tell. Meetings are often scheduled so that people can piggyback one conference with another and enjoy time side trips which afford contact with other cultures and places far beyond the context of a meeting venue.
The majority of GIC conferences are accessible to the public and open to the media, but the roundtable dialogue takes place under the Chatham House Rule, which stipulates that those who attend are free to use the information discussed, but they may not reveal who said what unless a speaker gives express permission. The rule creates a safe space for frank discussions among people with diverse views. Some sessions may be recorded for public release through the GIC website, but those sessions are clearly differentiated from those that fall under the Chatham House Rule.
GIC programming includes a mix of regional programs in the US and international events. GIC builds on past events, relationships, and partnerships by returning to the same places as well as going to new ones. Annual events in Sarasota or San Diego or Philadelphia or Jackson Hole or Salt Lake City attract local and regional as well as international attendance. University partnerships introduce students to the work of GIC and bring its worldclass speaker network to campus GIC has established partnerships with the following universities:
McGill University (Montreal)
Villanova University School of Business (Philadelphia)
Drexel University LeBow College of Business (Philadelphia)
Ariel University (Israel)
Yeshiva University (New York)
Universidad del Cema (Buenos Aires)
University of the Bahamas (Nassau)
University of South Florida Sarasota Manatee
Rowan University (New Jersey)
University of Arkansas Walton School of Business
High Point University (North Carolina)
GIC events are configured to encourage new connections and conversations, not merely to further existing ones. Measures as simple as seating university students at tables with premier economists for a dinner at a GIC event can change the course of a life. GIC members regularly help others to make fruitful connections. This habit is part of the spirit of helpfulness and the choreography of expanding relationships that characterize the organization.
GIC does not pay its speakers. Speakers come for the dialogue, the caliber of the thinking community that is GIC, and the value of what they can contribute but also the value of what they can learn and of the relationships they develop.
“We come home not as the same person as we were as when we left home.” – Timo Tyrvainen, Chief Economist, Climate Leadership Coalition in Finland, Senior Advisor with Aktia Bank
From Dialogue to Impact
The outcomes of compelling, purposeful dialogue can be difficult to measure as discussions evolve into actions, often over years. Yet there are outcomes and impacts to be traced, and their paths to realization cross within the network and the conversations that are GIC. GIC has, in a number of ways and on multiple occasions, brought together meaningful resources to address a problem that needs a solution. Here are examples:
• The IMF published an influential paper, delivered at a GIC conference at the Banque de France, on the Fed’s policy and its impact on income inequality. As a result, the path to IMF fiscal policy regarding income inequality has threaded its way through the work of GIC.
• Conversations sparked during downtime at a GIC conference in Chile led to a partnership and the founding of Afina International in 2011. Afina develops strategies for profitable enterprises that help to solve global problems with positive social impacts.
• It was through the GIC network that Sanford Health connected with efforts to establish clinics in Ghana. Sanford Health now partners with the Ghana Ministry of Health and operates clinics in Adenta, Akyawkrom, Cape Coast, Mankessim, and Kasoa, providing consulting, IV hydration, detention, maternity care, wound care, health education, telemedicine, laboratory, and pharmacy services.
• A student attended a GIC event in Stockholm, conducted in partnership with a university, and changed her educational plans to study with one of the speakers.
• A GIC meeting in Zambia resulted in the creation of a new price index for that maizebased country, one that is still used today.
GIC members who are business leaders leverage the understanding they glean at GIC to inform business strategy. For example, information gathered at GIC conferences enabled a CEO to help loan officers and farmers to better understand the geopolitical and global trade environment, influencing the success of loan applications and arming farmers with information to guide their own business strategies.
An advocate for people with disabilities found opportunity through GIC involvement to assess and address the economic impact of disabilities, found funding through GIC connections for an affordable housing project, and was ultimately asked to serve on the Federal Reserve Community Advisory Council, representing the West and people with disabilities. Her report on the impact of the pandemic on the 15 million micro businesses shuttered during the pandemic (disproportionately impacting minorities and women) raised awareness and helped to drive changes in the second round of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding. Some of the language in meeting minutes found its way into Fed policy.
For central bankers outside the US, GIC has offered access to presidents of regional Federal Reserve banks and the opportunity to better understand thinking that informs Fed policy, beyond pronouncements from the Fed itself. For presidents of regional Federal Reserve banks, GIC has provided the opportunity to engage with central bankers from other countries and to share ideas more freely. Conversations around the world have helped to shape thought among central bankers who have engaged through GIC events and now the College of Central Bankers.
GIC: 1976 to the Present
The Global Interdependence Center’s auspicious origin story unfolded in Philadelphia, in 1976, the year of the United States Bicentennial. The GIC was the creation of a group of business leaders, economists, and academics keenly aware of the world’s growing international economic interdependence. They were led by Frederick Heldring, Chairman and CEO of the Philadelphia National Bank and Vice Chairman of Corestates Financial Corporation. A Dutchman who once acted as a leader in the Dutch Underground, Heldring also served as Chairman of the Philadelphia Council for International Visitors and the World Affairs Council, and as Vice Chairman of the International House at the University of Pennsylvania. Fred Heldring and others envisioned making Philadelphia a truly international city, and the group purposed to promote free trade and the globalization of capital markets.
With project funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and under Heldring’s leadership, the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania, founded the GIC in 1976. Renowned historian Henry Steele Commager was charged in 1975 with the task of crafting a “Declaration of Interdependence,” which was issued the next year at a convocation of leading UN and US officials at Independence Hall and signed by 32 Senators and 90 members of the US House of Representatives, both Democrats and Republicans.
The GIC, formally incorporated in 1979, chose to focus on trade, finance, and monetary policy, and to address other global topics such as the environment, demographics, and law within the context of their economic relevance. Nobel laureate economist Lawrence Klein; Professor Howard Perlmutter of the Wharton School; Ed Boehne, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia; and Henry Wendt, CEO of SmithKline Beckman, numbered among GIC’s core participants for many years. In 1979, too, the GIC hosted its first International Monetary and Trade Conference. Speakers in the early years included Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Lawrence Kudlow and Robert Hormats, Chief Economists for the IMF, and others.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the Global Interdependence Center conducted quarterly luncheons, roundtables, workshops, and seminars, produced policy papers and other publications, and hosted an annual black-tie gala for fundraising. As an example, one memorable event in June of 1987, sponsored by the Fels Center of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, the GIC, and the Group of Thirty, drew an audience of 150 governmental, academic, and business figures from five continents to address the continuing crisis in developing nation debt, the international monetary system, and options for reform.
By the early 1990s, one generation of visionaries was ready to hand off to another. Fred Heldring retired as GIC’s chairman of the board in 1993, passing the mantle to William (Bill) Dunkelberg, known to friends as “Dunk,” who was a professor of economics at Temple University and serving as Dean of the School of Business and Management. Now in a period of transition, the GIC was challenged to raise money to meet the budget every year and worked through a series of executive directors. Marketing Professor Sharon Javie would step up to the plate more than once to serve ably as interim director. Under Dunkelberg’s leadership, the GIC expanded its connections with individuals, corporations, and organizations around the world. Within a couple of years of becoming chairman, Dunkelberg recruited David Kotok, a co-founder of Cumberland Advisors, among others, to join GIC. The two men aimed to open a new chapter in the history of the organization. It was David Kotok who proposed and financially supported the bold step of taking GIC’s programming global, beginning with a meeting in Paris that initiated GIC’s enduring relationship with the Banque de France
During the 2000s, GIC continued its signature emphasis on monetary policy, trade, and other aspects of interdependence and grew its international programming. The first one-day meeting in Paris in 2003 became an annual event and evolved to a three-day meeting by 2009, as the Banque de France, under the leadership of Christian Noyer, a long-time GIC friend and now a
member of the College of Central Bankers, became that year an official partner and host for the first installment in a four-part conference series on food and water
In 2007, the GIC held a two-day seminar in Dublin, Ireland, organized by GIC and the Irish American Business Chamber and Network, with discussions on various monetary and trade issues. The event included a visit to the Central Bank of Ireland, hosted by John Hurley, then Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland. The next year saw GIC in Cape Town, South Africa; in Tallinn, Estonia, for the Baltic Energy Conference; and in Israel for its first international delegation to the Middle East. In 2010–2011, as the world navigated its recovery from the financial crisis, GIC conducted a global conference series on “Financial Interdependence in the World’s PostCrisis Capital Markets,” addressing impacts of the crisis and the rebuilding of capital markets in both emerging and developed countries, with varying regional focuses. In Shanghai and Hong Kong, for example, GIC offered a two-part conference titled “One Country, Two Systems: Impacts after the Financial Crisis, a Dialogue in China’s Emerging and Mature Financial Centers and Markets.”
A second remarkable chapter in GIC history segued to a third in 2012 as Bill “Dunk” Dunkelberg stepped down as GIC Board Chair, to be followed by George Tsetsekos, who was completing his tenure that year as Dean of the LeBow College of Business at Drexel University. George Tsetsekos would serve through 2014; Michael Drury, Chief Economist for McVean Trading and Investments, would follow as board chair (2015–2017), to be succeeded by Don Rissmiller, Founding Partner of Strategas Research Partners (2018–2019); Kathleen Stephansen, Senior Economist for Haver Analytics and Trustee of EQAT Trust Funds (2020–2021); and Bill Kennedy, Co-Founder, CEO, and Chief Investment Officer at RiskBridge Advisors (2022–2023).
The GIC during these years evolved from an organization powered by the leadership of a small core of charismatic and well-connected individuals to one more broadly based on a leadership experience-building pathway toward a regularly rotating board chairmanship, with committees sharing the expanding vision and work, and implementation enabled by a competent, though small, staff led by Jill Fornito, who joined the GIC staff in 2008 and has served since 2017 as Executive Director. As part of its evolving vision, the GIC is diversifying its board to better reflect a diverse world and to better see and address issues that might otherwise be missed.
From 2015–2022, the GIC convened 58 international programs in 29 countries on 5 continents in addition to its programming across the US. A five-year series “The Bottom Line of Disabilities, ” a collaboration between GIC and the Columbus Community Center, debuted in Salt Lake City in 2014 and continued through 2019. Speakers ranged from Professor Temple Grandin to Federal Reserve officials that included GIC member David Altig, Executive Vice President and Director of Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and Stephanie Mackay, GIC member, social entrepreneur, and nonprofit leader who has since served a three-year appointment to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors Community Advisory Council.
When COVID-19 swept the globe in the spring of 2020, GIC, like the rest of the world, had to pivot its programming. In-person conferences and programs segued quickly (though with a great deal
of work behind the scenes) to online offerings, most of them free to the public. Viewers register to participate in online programs in real time, submitting questions to a moderator for speakers to answer in a Q&A segment, or watch replays at their convenience. As in-person events have resumed with COVID precautions in place, expanded online programming continues, complemented by videos recorded during designated portions of in-person conferences and gatherings such as Camp Kotok. These real-time online programs increase public access to the offerings of GIC, though GIC members and other event attendees point out that no online format can replace those in-person GIC gatherings thoughtfully structured to provide scope for interaction.
In-person conferences and programs resumed in 2021, subject to COVID precautions. The pandemic has highlighted in many dimensions the inescapable realities of interdependence, from the spread of viruses and the global implications of vaccine and treatment equity or the lack thereof, to the interplay between communicable disease and supply chains, economics, Fed policy, and geopolitics. In 2020, David Kotok provided funding for the David R. Kotok Global Healthcare Series “Analyzing Pandemics: Economic and Policy Impacts.” When it became clear that COVID-19 leaves in its wake many who confront new, lasting symptoms and disabilities, GIC offered a second series, sponsored by David Kotok and the Solve Long COVID Initiative, which continues to explore the pandemic’s long-term healthcare, policy, and economic impacts, and specifically the implications of long COVID.
Programming in 2021 and 2022 has continued to probe other aspects of interdependence, from the implications of the blockchain, crypto, and CBDCs for the banking system to the changing relationship between the US and China, the Fed’s evolving role in the financial system, the challenges of inflation and global food supply and demand dynamics, debt levels and interest rates, and the economic outlook in the wake of the pandemic, and the war in Ukraine.
As GIC expands its role in convening dialogues that help the world to forge solutions to global problems and to leverage interdependence for good, it looks back to the words penned in its original “Declaration of Interdependence” :
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that the inequalities and injustices which afflict so much of the human race are the product of history and society, not of God and nature; that people everywhere are entitled to the blessings of life and liberty, peace and security and the realization of their full potential; that they have an inescapable moral obligation to preserve those rights for posterity; and that to achieve these ends all the peoples and nations of the globe should acknowledge their interdependence and join together to dedicate their minds and their hearts to the solution of those problems which threaten their survival.”
-Excerpt from the Declaration of Interdependence, written by Henry Steele Commager for the Global Interdependence Center in October of 1975