Ernesto Zedillo is a Senior Fellow at the Jackson School of Global Affairs and Frederick Iseman ’74 Director of the Program for the Study of Globalization; Professor in the Fields of Economics and Political Science; and Professor Adjunct of Environmental Studies at Yale University. He served as President of Mexico from 1994-2000.

He is a member of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders using their collective experience and influence for peace, justice, and human rights worldwide. In 2020, he was asked to serve on the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR), mandated by the World Health Assembly to analyze the Covid-19 pandemic’s early emergence, global spread, health, economic and social impacts, and how it was controlled and mitigated.

Currently he serves on the Global Commission on Drug Policy and on the Selection Committee of the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity and the Hilton Humanitarian Award. From 2016 to 2021, he served as Chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation Economic Council on Planetary Health and formerly was Chair of the Board of the Natural Resource Governance Institute, Chair of the Global Development Network, and Co-Chair of the Inter-American Dialogue.

He is a Member of the Group of 30, a consultative group on international economic and monetary affairs. In 2011, he was elected an international member of the American Philosophical Society. Besides op-eds and journal articles, his edited volumes include: Trade in the 21st Century: Back to the Past? (2021); Africa at a Fork in the Road: Taking Off or Disappointment Once Again? (2015); Rethinking the War on Drugs through the US-Mexico Prism (2012); Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto (2008); and The Future of Globalization: Explorations in Light of Recent Turbulence (2008).

He earned his Bachelor’s degree from the School of Economics of the Natìonal Polytechnic Institute in Mexico and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University.