Deborah Lehr

Deborah Lehr is a member of the MEI Board of Governors. She also serves as the Vice Chairman and Executive Director of the Paulson Institute, founded by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. She advises on U.S.-China relations, green finance, and sustainability and heads the Paulson Institute's Green Finance Center there. 

As a founder and the CEO of Basilinna, a strategic business consulting firm focused on China, the United States, and the Middle East, Ms. Lehr advises companies on how to grow and expand their businesses in these regions. They are an exclusive partner of Edelman.

Previously, Ms. Lehr served as Senior Advisor to the Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch and Senior Managing Director at the New York Stock Exchange, where she focused on emerging markets. In addition, she helped build two successful consulting businesses, one as President of Stonebridge China and another as a partner at the top-ten law firm of Mayer Brown.

While serving in the U.S. government, Ms. Lehr was a director of Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, a deputy assistant U.S. trade representative for China, and was involved in export control and trade policy issues at the Department of Commerce.

Ms. Lehr is also the founder and Chairman of the Antiquities Coalition, which leads the global fight against cultural racketeering, the illicit trade in antiquities that supports terrorism and organized crime.

Ms. Lehr has lived and studied worldwide, including China, England, France, and Germany. Her writings have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Foreign Affairs, the South China Morning Post, U.S. News and World Report, Caixin Magazine, and Xinhua.net, among others. She has also appeared on television, speaking about China and the illicit trade in antiquities. 

Ms. Lehr is on the Boards of the World Monuments Fund and the Middle East Institute and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. UNESCO has nominated her as one of its inaugural list of accomplished global women.