Joshua Cooper Ramo

Joshua Cooper Ramo
Photo by Joi Ito
Born	(1968-12-14) December 14, 1968 Durham, NC
Alma mater	University of Chicago (B.A.) New York University (M.A.)
Occupation	Writer, executive, journalist
Known for	Beijing Consensus
Parent(s)	Roberta Cooper Ramo, Barry Ramo

Joshua Cooper Ramo (born December 14, 1968)^[1] is vice chairman and co-chief executive of Kissinger Associates, the consulting firm of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.^[2] He is also the author of several non-fiction books including two New York Times best-sellers, The Age of the Unthinkable and The Seventh Sense.

Early life

Ramo was raised in Los Ranchos, New Mexico, on the Rio Grande.^[3] He began flying in his late teens and later wrote the book No Visible Horizon about his experiences as a competitive aerobatic pilot.^[4]

Journalism career

Ramo began his career as a journalist at Newsweek in 1993. He joined Time magazine in 1996 when he was hired by Walter Isaacson. Ramo oversaw the magazine’s digital operations and ran Time's digital magazine while also covering technology. In 1998 he became foreign editor of Time, overseeing all the magazine’s international coverage. During his tenure at the magazine he wrote more than 20 domestic and international cover stories.^[5]

Business career

Prompted by an interest in policy and global affairs, Ramo moved to Beijing in 2002. He worked with John L. Thornton, a former president of Goldman Sachs, in China from 2003-2005, when he joined Kissinger Associates as managing director. In 2011, he became vice chairman of Kissinger Associates. In 2015, he became co-chief executive officer.^[6]

Fluent in Mandarin, Ramo currently divides his time between Beijing and New York, and serves as advisor to large corporations and investors. He additionally serves on the Board of Directors of Starbucks and Federal Express.^[7][8]

Honors and awards

In 2008, Ramo served as China analyst for NBC Sports during its coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games. For his work with Bob Costas and Matt Lauer during the Opening Ceremony of the Games he shared in a Peabody and an Emmy award.^[9]

Affiliations

Ramo has been a member of the Leaders 21 project, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a “Young Global Leader” and “Global Leader of Tomorrow” of the World Economic Forum, a Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, and a co-founder of the US-China Young Leaders Forum.^[10]

China Writings

The World Economic Forum called Ramo “One of China’s leading foreign-born scholars.”^[11] In 2004 he published “The Beijing Consensus,”^[12] which contrasted the Chinese model of economics and politics with western, “Washington Consensus” models.^[4] In 2007 he published “Brand China,” an analysis of China’s international image.

In 2011, Ramo proposed a new model of US-China relations based on complexity theory known as “co-evolution.”^[13]

Works

No Visible Horizon

In 2003, Ramo published No Visible Horizon: Surviving the World's Most Dangerous Sport, which tackled his training as an aerobatic flyer and the "violent, difficult maneuvers" of the sport.^[14][15]

The Age of the Unthinkable

In 2009, Ramo published the The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It, ^[16][17] which was a New York Times bestseller that was translated into 15 languages. The book applies ideas of chaos theory and complex adaptive systems to problems of foreign policy.

The Seventh Sense

In 2016, Little, Brown & Co. released Ramo's third book, The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks,^[18][19] which identified a powerful new instinct for networks that characterized new, powerful groups in politics, economics and security. Drawing on ideas from technology, history and economics, The Seventh Sense articulated that the emergence of constant, widespread connection represents a shift in power that will be as significant as the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, leading to a widespread collapse of existing institutions and the emergence of new sources of power. In the book, Ramo proposed a new idea for American grand strategy known as “Hard Gatekeeping” in which the country would develop and use platforms for the control of network topology, but would carefully limit access to those platforms.^[20] On June 6, 2016, The Seventh Sense debuted on the New York Times bestseller list at #7,^[21] and on May 29, 2016, The Seventh Sense was named to the Washington Post's nonfiction bestseller list for the week of May 26, 2016.^[22]

References

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