Elliot Gerson

Elliot F. Gerson is Executive Vice President of The Aspen Institute and American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust.

Mr. Gerson joined the Aspen Institute in 2004. He is responsible for its Public Programs, including the Aspen Ideas Festival, its Policy Programs, which number close to thirty and range across all areas of domestic and foreign policy as well as arts and culture, and its international partners in Europe and Asia.

Mr. Gerson has since 1998 overseen the U.S. Rhodes Scholarships. The earliest and arguably most famous of all international scholarships, the Rhodes Scholarships offer two and up to four years of funding at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

Before Mr. Gerson joined the Aspen Institute his career ranged across government, politics, business, and non-profit administration. Most of his business career was in the financial services industry, where he ran large life and health insurance businesses.

Mr. Gerson attended Harvard College, graduating in 1974, summa cum laude in History and Science. He attended Magdalen College as a Rhodes Scholar, winning First Class Honors in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He then attended Yale Law School, graduating in 1979. He followed law school with clerkships at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States (where he clerked for Justice Potter Stewart).