RELEASE: Robert Doar Selected to Be President of AEI

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 18, 2019
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Washington, DC (January 18, 2019)—Robert Doar, the Morgridge Fellow in Poverty Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), has been chosen by the AEI Board of Trustees to be the Institute’s 12th president. He will succeed Arthur C. Brooks on July 1, 2019. Brooks, who has been AEI’s president since January 1, 2009, announced last March his decision to step down from the position.

In announcing the selection, Daniel A. D’Aniello, chairman of the AEI Board of Trustees, said, “After an exhaustive global search for Arthur’s successor, led by our search committee, AEI’s trustees are absolutely delighted that Robert Doar has accepted our appointment. We received many excellent recommendations across academic, business, and government sectors and evaluated a number of highly qualified candidates. In Robert, we have found a leader who not only knows many in our community but also possesses a rare combination of qualities to lead AEI into the future. He brings to this position vast experience combining academic rigor with hands-on experience designing and administering programs, bringing to bear a deep understanding of how AEI can make a difference in Washington, DC, and in states and communities around the country. Most importantly, he possesses a strength of character and an unwavering devotion to AEI’s mission and principles.”

AEI President Arthur Brooks added, “I am thrilled that the Board has entrusted to Robert the legacy, mission, and success of AEI. I could not be more confident as we undergo this transition that AEI is well positioned for continued growth and impact with Robert at the helm. Over the past five years, I have been privileged to know Robert as a scholar, manager, mentor, and friend. He is an essential voice in our nation’s debates on how to reduce poverty in America and around the world. He understands that the key to our success as a nation lies in free enterprise, and, in the end, it is the only system that can improve the lives of literally billions of people at the periphery of our society—here and around the world.”

In accepting the appointment, Doar said, “I am humbled to be asked to serve as the president of AEI, especially at a time when AEI’s work is as important as ever. We at AEI share certain core values, including a belief in free people, free markets, earned success, American strength and global leadership, and a commitment to the rule of law and the United States Constitution. It has been my privilege to learn from Arthur Brooks, a scholar who has so ably made the moral case for AEI’s mission and a president who is leaving AEI in as strong a position as the Institute has ever been. I am grateful that AEI’s Board has entrusted his legacy to me, and I am proud to continue to work alongside my colleagues, whom I deeply admire and respect and whose work I have turned to not only during my tenure at AEI but also throughout my professional career.”

At AEI, Doar has transformed AEI’s scholarship on poverty issues and dramatically expanded that area of research at the Institute. Along the way, he has led efforts to find agreement across the political aisle, working with the policymakers, leaders, and practitioners who are directly shaping how our nation treats the poor. While at AEI, he has served as co-chair of the National Commission on Hunger and as a lead member of the AEI-Brookings Working Group on Poverty and Opportunity. He was a contributing author to “Opportunity, Responsibility, and Security: A Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty and Restoring the American Dream,” “This Way Up: New Thinking About Poverty and Economic Mobility,” and “Work, Skills, Community: Restoring Opportunity for the Working Class” and editor of “A Safety Net That Works: Improving Federal Programs for Low-Income Americans.”

Before joining AEI in 2014, Doar was commissioner of New York City’s Human Resources Administration, where he administered 12 public assistance programs. Programs included cash welfare, food assistance, public health insurance, home care for the elderly and disabled, energy assistance, child support enforcement services, adult protective services and domestic violence assistance, and help for people living with HIV/AIDS. In New York City, Doar oversaw a 25 percent reduction in the city’s cash welfare caseload. Before that role, Doar was New York State commissioner of social services, where he helped make New York a model for the implementation of welfare reform.

His curriculum vitae can be found at his AEI homepage, www.aei.org/doar.

Robert Doar will be AEI’s 12th president. The names and terms of his predecessors are listed below.

Lewis Brown: 1943–45

John O’Leary: 1945–46

Sinclair Weeks: 1946–50

Lewis Brown: 1950–51

Albert J. Hettinger Jr.: 1951–53

Allen D. Marshall: 1954–62

William J. Baroody Sr.: 1962–78

William J. Baroody Jr.: 1978–86

Paul W. McCracken: 1986

Christopher DeMuth: 1986–2008

Arthur C. Brooks: 2009–19

For media inquiries, please contact Veronique Rodman at [email protected] or 202.862.4871.