Speaker biographies

Bradley D. Belt is the executive director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Mr. Belt has extensive management, operations, financial markets, and policy development experience in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. He has previously held senior staff positions with the Securities Exchange Commission and United States Senate, including as counsel to the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. In the private sector, he has been an executive of a financial services and technology company, managing director of a public affairs and government relations strategy firm, and president of a management consulting firm. He also served as senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, leading the international finance and economics program. In 2005 SmartMoney named Mr. Belt one of its Power 30 in finance, and he has been profiled by National Journal, Government Executive, and Workforce Management magazines. He is a senior advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies and member of the Board of Trustees of the Washington National Cathedral. Prior affiliations include the bipartisan National Commission on Retirement Policy, the Board of Governors of the Securities Traders Association, and an appointment by President George W. Bush to the Social Security Advisory Board.

Douglas J. Elliott is the founder of the Center on Federal Financial Institutions. He is an expert on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance’s panel: "Uncharted Waters: Paying for Benefits From Individual Accounts in Federal Retirement Policy." Mr. Elliott worked as an investment banker for JPMorgan, Sanford Bernstein, Sandler O’Neil & Partners, and ABM Amro, where he was managing director and division head. He advised on mergers, acquisitions, and overall strategy, and also worked in credit analysis, equities analysis, and capital-raising.

James K. Glassman is a resident fellow at AEI, where he specializes in economics and financial markets. In addition, he is host and co-founder of TCSDaily.com, an online journal started in February 2000 which features articles and commentary on matters of technology and public policy. In September 2004, Mr. Glassman launched a new organization, Investors Action, for which he serves as chairman. Investors Action aims to educate America's 90 million investors and represent their interests in the public-policy arena. Mr. Glassman also writes a monthly column on investing for Kiplinger's Personal Finance. His most recent book, The Secret Code of the Superior Investor (Crown, 2002) was named one of the top ten investing books of 2002 by Barrons. Between July 1993 and July 2004, Mr. Glassman wrote an internationally syndicated weekly column on investing for the Washington Post and from 2004 to 2006 was a columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service. He was also host of two weekly television programs, "Capital Gang Sunday" on CNN and "TechnoPolitics" on PBS. From 1987 to 1993, he was editor and part-owner of Roll Call, the twice-weekly newspaper that covers Congress. Prior to that, he had a long career in magazine publishing, including positions as president of the Atlantic Monthly, executive vice president of U.S. News & World Report, and publisher of the New Republic. In 1972, he started Figaro, a New Orleans weekly newspaper, which he sold in 1979. He was executive editor of the Washingtonian magazine from 1979 to 1981.

Allan I. Mendelowitz is a director of the Federal Housing Finance Board. He previously served as the executive director of the U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission and was vice president of the Economic Strategy Institute, where he supervised research on trade policy, international competitiveness, and telecommunications policy. Mr. Mendelowitz was previously executive vice president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States and managing director for international trade, finance and economic competitiveness at the General Accounting Office. He is also a former member of the faculty at Rutgers University, where he taught international trade, finance, and urban economics.

Alex J. Pollock has been a resident fellow at AEI since July 2004, focusing on financial policy issues, including government-sponsored enterprises, Social Security reform, accounting standards, and the issues raised by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Previously he spent thirty-five years in banking, including twelve years as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, while also writing numerous articles on financial systems and management. He is a director of Allied Capital Corporation, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation, the International Union for Housing Finance, and the Great Books Foundation.