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Person

Eric Braverman

Nationality:

American
Occupation:

Organizational leadership
Born:

1975

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Eric Braverman is an American businessman with an extensive track record in the left-of-center philanthropic industry. He is the chief executive officer of Schmidt Futures, a grantmaking project of Eric Schmidt, the former executive chairman of the tech giant Google and its parent company Alphabet. Braverman is a long-time associate of Schmidt’s, having previously overseen his other philanthropic initiatives which include the Schmidt Family Foundation, which funds a variety of anti-fossil fuel activist groups, as well as left-wing media projects such as Media Matters for America and Mother Jones. 1

Braverman has also worked with Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: the two worked together at the influential global consulting firm McKinsey and Company, and she was later involved in recruiting him to help run the Clinton Foundation. However, Braverman eventually left his position as chief executive officer, reportedly due to a conflict among the organization’s leadership. 2 He then became CEO of the Rex Group consultancy. 3

In addition to his work on Google-adjacent projects and his involvement with the Clinton family, Braverman advised the transition team of the incoming Obama administration in 2008 and has developed close ties with members of the Biden administration through Schmidt Futures. 4 5 He teaches at Yale University, where he is a senior fellow, and co-chairs the Families and Workers Fund, a grantmaking organization which funds left-wing economic and social activism. 6 7

Early Career

Eric Braverman received his bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 1997, and shortly afterwards joined McKinsey and Company where he spent more than 15 years and became a partner. During that time, he also received a law degree from Yale. While at McKinsey, Braverman met Chelsea Clinton, daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton, with whom he would go on to work at her family philanthropy the Clinton Foundation. 8 9 One of Braverman’s major projects at McKinsey was creating a development agenda for the government of Haiti. 10 As the principal of McKinsey’s Washington, D.C. office, he co-authored a 2009 report about the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for greater employee engagement and productivity in the U.S. federal government. 11

CNN Money named Braverman to its “40 under 40” list in 2010, noting that he advised the Obama-Biden transition, built McKinsey’s disaster response model, and helped the Clinton Foundation and the Haitian government rebuild after a devastating 2010 earthquake and tsunami. 12

Clinton Foundation

Braverman joined the Clinton Foundation as its chief executive officer in July 2013. According to an April 2015 Politico report, Chelsea Clinton played a key role in recruiting him, in part due to their previous association at McKinsey, and she served as his ally and backer as he implemented policy changes. 13 Those changes included, but were not limited to, implementing governance and budget recommendations from a 2011 organizational audit for donor vetting and avoidance of conflicts of interest. Braverman also changed the Foundation’s financial processes, diversified the board of directors, and established metrics of success for programs’ effectiveness. 14

Within two years, reportedly after significant conflict with longtime Clinton allies who held other leadership roles and who disagreed with his changes, Braverman left his position. 15

Eric Schmidt Projects

After leaving the Clinton Foundation in January 2015, Braverman turned to Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, who hired him to manage the philanthropic network founded by him and his wife Wendy Schmidt, known for her support of left-of-center environmentalist and societal causes. Braverman spent a year as president of the Schmidt Group before helping launch and taking charge of Schmidt Futures, a new project which branded itself as a funder of scientific and policymaking innovation while backing liberal social projects. 16 These include the Families and Workers Fund, which provides grants to left-wing economic and racial activist initiatives, and the Southern Equality Fund, which targets communities in the American South with campaigns for LGBT issues. 17

Under Braverman’s leadership, the Schmidt grantmaking enterprise cultivated close ties with future members of the Joe Biden White House. Schmidt Futures employed WestExec Advisors, a consulting firm which markets itself as having close ties to policymakers, the military, and intelligence agencies, and which employed Obama administration Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who went on to become Biden’s Secretary of State. In May 2022, Braverman accompanied Biden on diplomatic visits to Japan, India, and Australia to promote a Schmidt Futures fellowship program, and Biden personally endorsed the program as part of a broader effort to build ties with those nations and counter Chinese influence in the Pacific region. According to a July 2022 Politico report, the President’s endorsement of a private initiative funded by Schmidt, one of the richest people in the world, created concerns within the State Department, which even drafted talking points to address potential media inquiries. 18

The America’s Frontier Fund (AFF), another national security initiative backed by Schmidt Futures and endorsed by the Biden administration, also raised concerns from watchdog organizations. While the AFF maintains that Schmidt has “no involvement” in its investment decisions, Braverman sits on the fund’s board of directors. A statement from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) called the fact that a private philanthropy was running a venture capital fund which would receive taxpayer dollars “highly unusual.” TTP also criticized the apparent lack of “safeguards to prevent AFF’s roster of former government insiders from using public funding to benefit their own, potentially lucrative investments.” The left-wing publication Vox pointed out that the organizational structure of the AFF appears to imitate that of In-Q-Tel, a venture capital fund which exists to invest in technologies for use by intelligence agencies. 19

References

  1. [1]“Eric Braverman.” Schmidt Futures. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.schmidtfutures.com/person/eric-braverman/
  2. Kenneth P. Vogel. “Chelsea’s Invisible Hand.” Politico. April 12, 2015. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/hillary-clinton-2016-chelsea-116910/
  3. “Eric Braverman.” Schmidt Futures. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.schmidtfutures.com/person/eric-braverman/
  4. “Eric Braverman.” Schmidt Futures. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.schmidtfutures.com/person/eric-braverman/
  5. Alex Thompson. “Biden’s pitch for Eric Schmidt-funded fellowship raised red flags.” Politico. July 11, 2022. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/11/biden-schmidt-google-fellowship-00044717
  6. “Eric Braverman.” Schmidt Futures. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.schmidtfutures.com/person/eric-braverman/
  7. Anna Fink. “Families and Workers Fund.” Amalgamated Foundation. April 14, 2020. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.amalgamatedfoundation.org/insights-and-initiatives/families-and-workers-fund
  8. Eric Braverman. LinkedIn. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-braverman-85b7184
  9. Kenneth P. Vogel. “Chelsea’s Invisible Hand.” Politico. April 12, 2015. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/hillary-clinton-2016-chelsea-116910/
  10. Eric Braverman, Lynn Taliento. “A development agenda for Haiti’s new government.” McKinsey Quarterly. March 2011. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Public%20Sector/Our%20Insights/A%20development%20agenda%20for%20Haitis%20new%20government/A%20development%20agenda%20for%20Haitis%20new%20government.pdf
  11. Eric Braverman, Aaron De Smet, Bill Schaninger, “Improving worker performance in the U.S. government,” McKinsey. November 2009. Accessed January 22, 2023. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Public%20Sector/Our%20Insights/Improving%20worker%20performance%20in%20the%20US%20government/Improving%20worker%20performance%20in%20the%20US%20government.pdf
  12. “40 under 40,” CNN Money. 2010. Accessed January 22, 2023. https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/fortune/1010/gallery.40_under_40.fortune/33.html
  13. Kenneth P. Vogel. “Chelsea’s Invisible Hand.” Politico. April 12, 2015. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/hillary-clinton-2016-chelsea-116910/
  14. Kenneth P. Vogel, “Eric Braverman tried to change the Clinton Foundation. Then he quit.” Politico. March 1, 2015. Accessed January 22, 2023. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/clinton-foundation-eric-braverman-115598/
  15. Kenneth P. Vogel. “Chelsea’s Invisible Hand.” Politico. April 12, 2015. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/hillary-clinton-2016-chelsea-116910/
  16. Eric Braverman. LinkedIn. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-braverman-85b7184
  17. Anna Fink. “Families and Workers Fund.” Amalgamated Foundation. April 14, 2020. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.amalgamatedfoundation.org/insights-and-initiatives/families-and-workers-fund
  18. Alex Thompson. “Biden’s pitch for Eric Schmidt-funded fellowship raised red flags.” Politico. July 11, 2022. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/11/biden-schmidt-google-fellowship-00044717
  19. Whizy Kim. “Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s new investment fund deepens his ties to national security interests.” Vox. June 9, 2022. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/6/9/23160588/eric-schmidt-americas-frontier-fund-google-alphabet-tech-government-revolving-door
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