Elliot Gerson

Elliot Francis Gerson (born 1952) is the executive vice president of the Aspen Institute, responsible for its Public Programs, Policy Programs and International Partners,[1] and the American Secretary to the Rhodes Trust, responsible for the Rhodes Scholarships in the United States.[2]

Elliot F. Gerson’s career has spanned law, government, politics, business and the nonprofit sector, with executive experience at high levels in each. He worked as a civilian assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown in the Carter Administration, during which time he was awarded the Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Medal. He also served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (now the Department of Health and Human Services), Joseph Califano, in the Carter Administration. He was a clerk to Judge Harold Leventhal of the United States Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit, and also a Supreme Court clerk to Justice Potter Stewart.

He practiced law as the Deputy Attorney General of Connecticut and briefly before that in private practice in Hartford, CT and Washington, D.C., before entering the financial services industry where he rose to Executive Vice President of The Travelers Corporation and President of its managed healthcare and health insurance business, and briefly as Executive Vice President for successor companies MetraHealth and United Health Care. He subsequently led smaller start-up companies in technology and specialized health care. Mr. Gerson worked as Policy Director then Finance Chair in the 2004 presidential campaign of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman.

In 2003, Mr. Gerson and colleagues met with former South African President Nelson Mandela, regarding the establishment of a new foundation focused on expanding opportunities for Africans in higher education. This became the Mandela Rhodes Foundation which offers young leaders from across the African continent a chance to become part of Nelson Mandela’s legacy of transformative impact. In 2021 Mr. Gerson Chaired the Judges' Panel of the Foundation’s inaugural Äänit Prize,[3] which supports initiatives that can deliver positive social impact for Africa’s most marginalized populations.

Mr. Gerson joined the Aspen Institute in 2004. He is responsible for its Public Programs, including the Aspen Ideas Festival, which was launched under him in 2005, and its approximately 30 Policy Programs ranging across domestic and foreign policy, as well as arts and culture, and its dozen Aspen Institute International Partners in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

He is also the American Secretary to The Rhodes Trust and administers the Rhodes Scholarships in the United States. The earliest and arguably most famous of all international scholarships, the Rhodes Scholarships offer two to four years of funding to attend the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Mr. Gerson was appointed by Trust CEO and Warden Sir Anthony Kenny in 1998 as its fifth American Secretary, following David Alexander. In that capacity, he administers all aspects of the Rhodes Scholarship program in the United States. In 2014, for his contribution to the University of Oxford, Gerson was recognized as a "Distinguished Friend of Oxford.” He also serves on the Scholarship Committee of the Rhodes Trustees. Prior to becoming American Secretary, Mr. Gerson served the Trust for over a decade as Connecticut Secretary and District I member, and as Assistant Secretary to the Trust under then Secretary William J. Barber from 1977 to 1979.  

Gerson was an undergraduate at Harvard University, a Rhodes Scholar who studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, a law student at Yale Law School, a US Supreme Court clerk, practised law in government and privately, held executive positions in state and federal government and on a presidential campaign, and was president of start-ups in health care and education, and of two leading national insurance and health-care companies. He has served on many non-profit boards, especially in the arts.[4] The historian of the Rhodes Trust, Philip Ziegler, has described Gerson as "a distinguished lawyer who went on to a highly successful career in business".[5]

For his contribution to the University of Oxford, Gerson has been recognized as a "Distinguished Friend of Oxford".[6] He is an active promoter of philanthropy, including to education, and donor.[7]

Gerson has published various articles, including in The Atlantic,[8] The Washington Post,[9] The Huffington Post,[10] The Harvard Crimson[11] and elsewhere.