Peter Orszag

Peter R. Orszag was born on December 16, 1968, in Boston, Massachusetts. He grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, the son of Reba (née Karp) and Steven Orszag. He graduated with high honors from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1987 and earned an A.B. summa cum laude in economics from Princeton University in 1991. He continued his education at the London School of Economics, where he obtained an M.Sc. in 1992 and a Ph.D. in economics in 1997, attending as a Marshall Scholar. His early career included serving as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy between 1997 and 1998, and as Senior Economist and Senior Adviser on the Council of Economic Advisers between 1995 and 1996 during the Clinton administration. He also lectured in macroeconomics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1999 and 2000.

From January 2007 to November 2008, Orszag served as the Director of the Congressional Budget Office. In this role, he emphasized the long-term fiscal challenges presented by rising healthcare expenditures and strengthened the CBO’s analytical capabilities by adding 20 full-time health analysts. Following this, he was appointed as the 37th Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under President Barack Obama, serving from January 2009 to July 2010. During his tenure at the OMB, he managed the federal budget through a period of economic instability, advocating for deficit reduction once the economy recovered from the 2008 crisis. His work focused heavily on healthcare reform, which became a top legislative priority for the administration after the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

After leaving government service, Orszag joined Citigroup in 2011, holding positions as Vice Chairman of Corporate and Investment Banking and Chairman of the Financial Strategy and Solutions Group. In May 2016, he transitioned to Lazard as Vice Chairman of Investment Banking and managing director. His career at Lazard progressed rapidly: he was named Global Co-Head of Healthcare in July 2018, then Head of North American Mergers & Acquisitions, and became CEO of Financial Advisory in April 2019. He led efforts to expand data analytics and AI within the firm and established Lazard Geopolitical Advisory in 2022. On October 1, 2023, he assumed the role of CEO and Chairman of Lazard, with plans to double Lazard’s revenue by 2030 and expand its managing directors. Effective January 1, 2025, his role at Lazard expanded further to encompass both CEO and Chairman responsibilities.