Ted Fishman Speaker Biography
Global Economic Expert and Author, China, Inc.
and Shock of Gray
Ted C. Fishman is a veteran journalist and former commodities trader on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange who has emerged as a leading expert on two subjects: aging and the People’s Republic of China and its development as a world power. In his writing, Fishman is noted for taking seemingly complex topics – particularly how global economic trends influence people’s everyday experiences – and making them understandable and meaningful for a general audience. Fishman can also customize his talks to his audience and is more than happy to do pre-event interviews with members of the organization so as to ensure his presentations contain the most relevant and dynamic content possible.
Media
He has been featured on ABC, CNN, Fox, the BBC, CNBC, PBS, NPR, Public Radio International, and Sky News (UK), among many others. Fishman also frequently consults local, state, and federal leaders concerned about how to navigate China’s economic rise. A former floor trader and member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, he ran his own trading firm until 1992.
Books
In his best-selling book, China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World, Fishman describes the effects of China’s recent emergence as a world power on the lives and businesses of people across the globe. In addition to its success in America, the book has been translated and published Japan, China, France, Taiwan, Korea, Spain, and Turkey. Fishman’s essays and reports appear in many of the world’s most prominent journals, including The New York Times Magazine, Money, Harper’s, Worth, INC, Business2.0, Esquire, USA Today, GQ, The Times of London, German GEO, and Chicago Magazine, and his commentaries have been featured on Public Radio International’s Marketplace.
Aging
He is also the author of Shock of Gray: The Aging of the World’s Population and How it Pits Young Against Old, Child Against Parent, Worker Against… In this book, Fishman looks at how the aging of the world is propelling globalization, redefining nearly every important relationship we have and changing life for everyone young and old.
Keynote Speaker
Ted Fishman is an accomplished public speaker who has addressed gatherings worldwide. His talks reflect the intelligence and wit readers find in his writing and have most recently focused on the emergence of China and its impact on the lives of Americans as consumers, workers, managers, and citizens. Fishman’s presentations combine engaging storytelling with a wide ranging knowledge about the world economy, putting his audiences’ top concerns into context and exploring how they relate to big, global economic trends. His style is lively and stimulating, and question and answer periods are inevitably engaging.
Education
Fishman has lived and worked in Japan and Indonesia. In fact, he wrote China, Inc. after a long period of observation. He is a graduate of Princeton University and currently lives in Chicago.
Ted Fishman Speaking Topics
The Urgency of China: How the China’s Next Act Changes Our World
No country--since the rise of the United States--has ever challenged the rest of the world on so many fronts as the rise of China does today. Ted Fishman explores the dynamic behind China's rise and how the vast changes in that country change life for the rest of us as workers, managers, consumers, citizens and even as parents. In the wake of the global financial crisis, China has embarked on the most ambition stimulus plan and infrastructure building effort in the world. It is also vastly expanding it education system so help push the nation and its people to the top of world economy. The stakes are enormously high for people everywhere, and nothing about China’s continual rise is assured. Fishman explores the fundamental drivers of China’s push and what the rest of the world must do to insure that China’s drive creates prosperity at home, in the United States or wherever home may be. With urgency, humor and insight, Fishman brings China’s next stage vividly home.
Shock of Gray: How the Aging of the World's Population Forever Changes You, Your Business and Your World, and brings Challenges, Treasure and Global Prosperity
The Shock of Gray is a new reality that is essential for nearly all audiences to understand. Ted Fishman delivers a powerful lesson in how the unprecedented aging of the world’s population two lies at the heart of nearly every major social and economic trend today, driving globalization and propelling the movement of money, goods and people. Understanding this immense, unprecedented change is essential to the stewardship of companies, organizations and communities that aim to endure and thrive. Fishman has traveled our grayer future and found what's bright, what's stormy, and he is creating a map we all will need to navigate a great change.
Small Places, Big Advantages
Smaller places can thrive in the global economy if they harness their best assets: strong community, committed boosters and close-knit networks. Ted Fishman whose book, China, Inc., describes the effects of changes in the world’s most populous country on people everywhere, explores how smaller places are uniquely poised to profit as the needs of large economies propel globalization. Fishman matches the strengths of smaller places with the needs of the world’s biggest economic actors. While not all small places thrive, nearly all of the world’s richest places (per capita) are small-scale places, and nearly all of the world’s most globalized economies, with highest skilled professional workforces are also small places. Fishman’s talks build on interviews and research into the economy of his local audiences. He provides insights that can serve, among others, communities, local economic development bodies, workforce boards, educational institutions, chambers of commerce and local industries looking to provide thought leadership in their communities.
Ted Fishman Books
Shock of Gray: The Aging of the World’s Population and How it Pits Young Against Old, Child Against Parent, Worker Against Boss, Company Against Rival, and Nation Against Nation
Purchase Book
China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World
Purchase BookTed Fishman Videos
Ted Fishman Speaker Testimonials
“China, Inc. is the amazing story of how the slumbering Red giant woke up and, at warp speed, transformed itself into the greatest superpower of the very near future -- with the biggest, tallest, longest, and fastest of just about everything there is. Fishman will forever change your view not just of China's place in the world -- but of America's as well.”
- Craig Unger | author of House of Bush, House of Saud
If the 20th was the American century, then the 21st belongs to China. It’s that simple, Ted C. Fishman says, and anyone who doubts it should take his whirlwind tour of the world’s fastest-developing economy.
- William Grimes | NEW YORK TIMES
China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World is a must-read for American business people who operate in, buy from or compete with China… journalist Ted C. Fishman presents a first-rate read about how China came to be the economic power it is today.
- Philip C. Adams | Chicago Sun-Times
THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK may be growing up too fast. Warnings about the downside of China’s galloping economic growth and its increasing impact on the global balance of power have begun bleeding through the happy talk about its vast market, its endless supply of lowest-wage workers, and the unbeatable bargains it delivers to U.S. consumers.
- Susan Witty | Barron's
