Robert E. Rubin served as the 70th United States Treasury Secretary from 1995 to 1999, after serving as the first director of the White House National Economic Council. In these roles, he helped achieve the first federal budget surplus in a generation, address international financial crises, and resolve a debt-ceiling standoff, among much else. He spent twenty-six years at Goldman Sachs, rising to co-senior partner, and was a senior counselor and board member at Citigroup. He currently serves as senior counselor to the independent investment advisory firm Centerview Partners, as co-chairman emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, and as chair of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation. Rubin is the author of In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington, a New York Times bestseller, and The Yellow Pad: Making Better Decisions in an Uncertain World. He is a founder of The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, which promotes broad-based economic growth. A former member of the Harvard Corporation, he also served on its Finance Committee. He graduated from Harvard summa cum laude and from Yale Law School. He has received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and other universities.