Profile

Michael Klowden is the executive vice chairman of the board of the Milken Institute.  For 21 years prior to assuming this role, he was the Institute’s CEO. Under his leadership as CEO, the Institute dramatically enhanced its reputation and its worldwide outreach. He focused the Institute on several of the key challenges facing the United States and the world, such as creating job and economic opportunities, improving the efficiency of medical research, and promoting free expression and the exchange of opposing points of view. Under Klowden’s leadership, the annual Global Conference became one of the world’s premier business, finance, and policy gatherings. Klowden also oversaw the creation of the Milken Institute Associates and the Young Leaders Circle, networks of supporters around the globe that provide the Institute with a deep pool of expertise. Multiple specialized centers at the Institute were created during his tenure, including the Asia Center, the California Center, FasterCures, the Center for Financial Markets, the Center for the Future of Aging, the Center for Public Health, and the Center for Strategic Philanthropy.  The Institute established under his leadership a major presence in Washington, DC, home to the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, FasterCures, the Center for Financial Markets, and the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University, as well as the opening of offices in Singapore, London, Abu Dhabi, New York, and Miami. Klowden joined the Institute in 2001 from the global investment bank and institutional securities firm Jefferies Group Inc. As president at Jefferies, he was responsible for directing the firm’s transition from a trading firm to a full-service investment bank. Prior to joining Jefferies, Klowden was a senior partner at the international law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. Klowden received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago, where he has served as a trustee and a JD from Harvard Law School. He has served on numerous for-profit and charitable boards.