B I O

David Smick is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Johnson Smick International, Inc. (JSI), a financial market advisory firm based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1985 (as Smick Medley International, Inc.), the firm was the first of its kind to provide information services on important global economic and political/policy changes to the large macroeconomic-oriented hedge funds and proprietary trading departments of major financial institutions. In 1990 then-Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Manuel H. Johnson joined the firm. Today JSI clients consist of a select group of prestigious international financial institutions located throughout the world.

Mr. Smick is also the founder, editor, and publisher of The International Economy (TIE) magazine, a quarterly publication launched in 1987 and geared toward the global policymaking community. Labeled by the Washington Post “that precocious Washington [quarterly],” the niche publication is targeted almost exclusively to the financial policy elite. The publication’s Editorial Advisory Board includes a broad cross section of global strategists—from European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet to financier George Soros, from Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs to Harvard’s Martin Feldstein. In defining the magazine, the Financial Times described Mr. Smick as editor as “[one] of Washington’s premier insiders” in the field of economic policy.

Mr. Smick has advised both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates including Ronald Reagan and New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley. He began his career in Washington in 1975 as a member of the professional staff of the United States Senate Minority Policy Committee where he wrote economic position papers and speeches. From 1977–78, he served in Detroit as a speechwriter to the executives of the Chrysler Corporation.

A former Democrat who was born and raised in Baltimore, Mr. Smick from 1979 to 1984 served as Chief of Staff to Representative Jack Kemp (R-NY), a member of the congressional leadership. In late 1979, Mr. Smick joined with Representative Kemp in Los Angeles for three days of briefings with presidential candidate Ronald Reagan and his economic team. Out of these briefings came the formation of the 1981 economic recovery plan. While with Representative Kemp, Mr. Smick also helped launch legislation to establish “urban enterprise zones,” a program of targeted tax incentives for decaying inner city areas.

In 1985 Mr. Smick, working with Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ), Representative Kemp, and the bipartisan leadership of the U.S. House and Senate, developed and organized the highly successful series of “U.S. Congressional Summits on the Dollar and Trade.” These annual gatherings, with Alan Greenspan initially as moderator, attracted heads of state as well as the finance ministers and central bank governors from every major industrialized country. “Congressional Summits” have taken place in Washington, New York, Zürich, Frankfurt, Vienna, and Tokyo. In Zürich, Senator Bradley launched a major third world debt reform initiative which later became the underpinnings of the now famous Brady Debt Plan (Brady Bonds). These gatherings culminated in the formation in 1990 of the G7 Council, a nonprofit foundation to improve international policy coordination and free trade.

Mr. Smick's views on domestic and international economics have appeared in major newspapers and magazines, here and abroad, including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

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