Edward Conard

Early life and education

Conard graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.S.E. in Operations Research in 1978. He earned his M.B.A. with distinction from Harvard Business School in 1982.

Early career and Bain Capital

Prior to business school, Conard worked as an automotive engineer at Ford Motor Company. After graduating, he joined Bain & Company, the Boston-based global management-consulting firm, eventually becoming a vice president and leading the firm’s industrial practice.

Conard left Bain in 1990 to become a director at Wasserstein Perella & Co., a boutique investment bank. At Wassernstein, he headed the firm's Transaction Development Group.

Conard was a managing director at Bain Capital, the head of Bain's New York office and the leader of its industrial practice. He joined the firm in 1993 prior to the firm raising $300 million of private equity. When Conard retired in 2007, Bain Capital managed $75 billion of capital and had offices in Boston, New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Mumbai. His first acquisition was that of a pharmaceutical company for half a billion dollars. That same company later rose to more than $10 billion in value.

While at Bain Capital, Conard took Waters Corporation, DDI, ChipPac, Innophos, and Sensata public and sat on their boards of directors. He still sits on the board of Waters Corporation.

Writing, speaking, and scholar career

Conard is the author two top-ten New York Times bestsellers: Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You've Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong and The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class. He became the tenth most searched author on Google in 2012 after publishing his first book. Conard joined the American Enterprise Institute as a visiting fellow in 2012. His work with AEI focuses on U.S. economic policy - in particular, on the effect of taxes, government policies, and finance on risk-taking and innovation.

Unintended Consequences

Conard published Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You've Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong in May 2012. The book was featured on the cover of the New York Times Sunday Magazine and went on to become a New York Times top ten non-fiction bestseller.

While the New York Times predicted the book might become “the most hated book of the year,” leading economists such as Greg Mankiw, Andrei Shleifer, Steven Levitt, Nouriel Roubini, Tyler Cowen, and Glenn Hubbard publicly endorsed the book. In contrast to the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal called the book “a full throttle defense of economic dynamism…refreshing at a time when so many take the failure of capitalism for granted.” The New York Times described Unintended Consequences as “…arguing that growing income inequality shows the economy is working.” Timothy Noah, the author of The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality noted: “the biggest surprise, on opening Unintended Consequences, lies in discovering that this book isn't about income inequality at all.” The book analyzes why the U.S. has outperformed other high-wage economies, explains the causes the financial crisis, and makes recommendations for accelerating growth in its aftermath. Conard summarizes his book in a 23-minute video for The UP Experience.

Since its publication, Conard has made numerous television appearances in which he has debated leading economists including Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, Alan Krueger, Austan Goolsbee, and Jared Bernstein; journalists including Fareed Zakaria, Chris Hayes, and Andrew Ross Sorkin; and politicians such as Barney Frank, Howard Dean, and Eliot Spitzer. Conard also debated Jon Stewart for 33 minutes, one of Stewart’s longest interviews. The video of the debate has received nearly 100,000 views. He has also written op-eds for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and Politico, among others.

The Upside of Inequality

Conard published The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class in September 2016. The book debuted at #8 on the New York Times top ten non-fiction list and reached #1 on the New York Times business book list.

The Upside of Inequality was met with positive reviews, including former president of Harvard University and economist Larry Summers, a very tough critic on the other side of the aisle, blurbed: I disagree but respect the argument, calling it "a very valuable contribution" that will "sharpen your thinking on critical economic issues." Noted economist Tyler Cowen who wrote on Bloomberg News: "Conard’s central idea is that risk-bearing equity capital is the truly scarce asset in most economic situations, and economic analysis should adapt accordingly. He is very creative in seeing some of the implications of this view. I. . .found it very stimulating to ponder. It puts many of the pieces together in a new and different way." Harvard economist Greg Mankiw recommended Upside and interviewed Conard on CSPAN. David Author, George Borjas, Larry Lindsey, and other prominent economists also praised it. National Review said the book is a "rousing defense of conservative beliefs about how markets and incentives drive prosperity."

Political activities

In March 2011, Conard made a $1 million U.S. dollar contribution to the super PAC promoting Mitt Romney's candidacy in the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election through W Spann LLC, a shell corporation that rendered him anonymous and appeared to exist for the sole purpose of contributing to Romney's campaign. In August 2011, came forward to quell the controversy that arose.

Personal life

Conard is married to Jill Davis, a two-time New York Times bestselling novelist and a former writer for the Late Show with David Letterman.