Robert E. Rubin joined the Bill Clinton administration in 1993 as assistant to the president for economic policy and as director of the newly created National Economic Council (NEC). At the NEC, he coordinated economic policy recommendations to the president and monitored the implementation of the president’s economic policy goals. In January 1995, Secretary Rubin was appointed as the United States’ 70th secretary of the treasury. He served for four and a half years, until July 1999, during which he was involved in balancing the federal budget; opening trade policy to further globalization; acting to stem financial crises in Asia, Mexico, and Russia; helping to resolve the impasse over the public debt limit; and guiding sensible reforms at the Internal Revenue Service.

Secretary Rubin began his career at Goldman, Sachs & Company in New York City in 1966, eventually serving as co-senior partner and co-chairman from 1990–92. From 1999–2009, he served as a member of the board of directors at Citigroup and as a senior advisor to the company. In 2010, he joined Centerview Partners as senior counselor of the firm.

Secretary Rubin is one of the founders of the Hamilton Project, an economic policy project housed at the Brookings Institution that offers a strategic vision and innovative policy proposals on how to create a growing economy that benefits more Americans. He is the author of In An Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington (with Jacob Weisberg), which was a New York Times bestseller as well as named one of Business Week’s 10 best business books of the year.

Secretary Rubin is chairman emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a member of the board of trustees at the Mount Sinai Health System and chairman of the board of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), which is the nation's leading community development support organization with 38 offices nationwide. In June 2014, he completed a 12-year term as a member of the Harvard Corporation and is now a member of its finance committee. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1960 with an AB in economics, received an LLB from Yale Law School, and attended the London School of Economics. He has received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and other universities.