Wilson Center Chief Jane Harman to Leave Think Tank in 2021

Former Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) announced she will step down as President and CEO of the Wilson Center when her contract expires in February 2021.

In a press release, the Wilson Center said it will now begin a "comprehensive search" for her replacement.

A few weeks ago, the White House announced its intent to nominate Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) as the new Chair of the Wilson Center's Board of Trustees.

The think tank recently issued a press release addressing recent calls for government entities and institutions to remove the Woodrow Wilson name from buildings and other places, saying it continues to "grapple" with the issue.  Earlier in the month, the Wilson Center announced a partnership with the Smithsonian Institution on its Race Initiative. 

In other think tank personnel news, Tyra Mariani, President and COO of New America, has been appointed President of the Schultz Family Foundation.

AEI President Arthur Brooks Stepping Down in 2019

Here is more from Politico:

American Enterprise Institute head Arthur Brooks said Wednesday he plans to step down in the summer of 2019 after more than ten years leading the conservative think tank.

“Succession plans work best precisely when an organization is at maximum strength,” Brooks wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. “I believe social enterprises generally thrive best when chief executives don’t stay much longer than a decade, because it’s important to refresh the organizational vision periodically and avoid becoming uniquely associated with one person.”

Before taking the helm of AEI, which is generally viewed as less political than some of its think tank counterparts, in 2009, Brooks taught economics and social entrepreneurship at Syracuse University. He also spent 12 years as a classical musician in the United States and Spain.

Tully Friedman and Daniel D’Aniello, co-chairs of AEI’s board of trustees, said a search committee will be formed in the coming weeks to find a successor.

Here is AEI's press release on the Brooks announcement.  Here is what the Washington Examiner has to say.

Here is what Jonah Goldberg has to say about "the coming end of the Arthur Brooks era."

There has been major turnover of leadership at a number of top US think tanks the past year, including at the Brookings Institution and Heritage Foundation.

Demos President Heather McGhee Stepping Down

Here is more from Politico:

HEATHER MCGHEE STEPS DOWN AS PRESIDENT OF DEMOS: Heather McGhee will step down from her role as president of Demos this summer and will become a distinguished senior fellow with the group. Starting in March, the left-leaning think tank’s board of directors will look for a new president. In an email to PI, Arlene Corbin Lewis, Demos’ director of communications, said McGhee is leaving her role as president “to focus all of her energy and time into addressing the racial divide that is tearing apart our country and this includes focusing on writing her book and increasing her media and public speaking work.” She added that the leadership transition “comes at a time of strength and growth for the organization.”

McGhee's biography can be found here.  And here is how McGhee, who married Cassim Shepard in 2016, spends her Sundays.

Perhaps she can join other former think tank heads who have recently gone into the lobbying and consulting world...

Heritage Foundation Narrows Down Search for New President

Earlier in the year, after a major shake-up at the conservative Heritage Foundation that led to the ouster of its president, Jim DeMint, the think tank announced that it would begin a broad search for a new president.  Here is an update from The Washington Post:

The Heritage Foundation has narrowed its search for a new president down to a shortlist of finalists, a group that includes Todd Ricketts, a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs, and Marc Short, a senior Trump White House official, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

In addition to Ricketts and Short, Heritage’s board of trustees also has expressed interest in Lisa B. Nelson, the chief executive of the American Legislative Exchange Council, and David Trulio, a vice president at Lockheed Martin, the people said on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. 

The conservative think tank’s trustees, however, remain torn over their decision. Kay Coles James — a Heritage board member who served as the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under President George W. Bush and is close to Heritage founder Edwin J. Feulner — has been mentioned by several associates as someone who could serve in a temporary capacity if the board cannot settle on a candidate.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and a Trump ally, was another person considered in earlier talks inside Heritage, although Meadows made clear to several people close to the think tank that he preferred to remain in Congress, a person familiar with the discussions said.

J.D. Vance, the best-selling author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” a memoir about his upbringing in Appalachia, was also floated early in the process as a possible high-profile, younger recruit.

The articles goes on to note that talks to choose a new president have stalled a bit as Heritage trustees "debate the future of the think tank."

As Think Tank Watch previously reported, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) was being considered but he declined an offer to lead the think tank.

Here is a piece by Philip Wegmann in the Washington Examiner entitled "Senior White House Strategist, Marc Short, Won't Say if He Will Dump Trump for Heritage Foundation."

On October 17, President Trump spoke about tax reform at Heritage's annual President's Club meeting (full speech here).

President Trump was the fourth sitting US president to speak to Heritage members since its founding nearly 45 years ago.   The other three were Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, former Heritage president Jim DeMint, who recently launched the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), is saying that he took Heritage "to new heights of influence" during his four-year tenure.

From his CPI biography: "Under DeMint’s direction, Heritage played a major role in the Trump transition, with the policy series 'Mandate for Leadership' used as the basis for the President’s first budget...Heritage [also] partnered with the Federalist Society to create a list of possible Supreme Court judicial nominations that culminated in the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch."

DeMint has hired several former Heritage staffers for his new outfit, including Wesley Denton, Matt Buckham, Rachel Bovard, and Megan Tubb.

Amid Decline, Brookings Names John Allen New President

The Brookings Institution has just announced that retired US Marine Corps four-star general John Allen will become the new president of the think tank.  The news comes as Brookings's reputation has suffered a serious blow after numerous pay-to-play schemes at the well-known think tank were recently uncovered.

Naming a former high-level military official may be an attempt by the board to send a message that discipline is needed to help "clear the swamp."

Here is more from a Brookings press release:

The Brookings Institution announced today that John R. Allen, a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general and former commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, will become the eighth leader in the Institution’s 101-year history.

Allen currently serves as a Brookings distinguished fellow in the Foreign Policy program and as chair, Security and Strategy. On November 6, he will succeed Strobe Talbott, who will step down as president after more than 15 years of service.

Strobe Talbott will remain at Brookings as a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program.

Brookings has been searching for a new president ever since Talbott announced his intent to resign back in January.

At that time, a search committee to find a replacement, reporting to the Board of Trustees, was formed.

And no, NBC News's Jonathan Allen is not the new Brookings president.

John Hudson of BuzzFeed notes that there was an internal push for Martin Indyk to become president, but Allen won out.

Think Tank Watch has noticed that very few in the media covered the news, which may indicate a lack of attention being paid to many major think tanks these days (particularly ones that are out of favor by the current White House).

Head of Think Tank EPI to Step Down

It looks like 2017 is shaping up to be the a major year for turnover of think tank presidents.

New presidents are expected at both the Brookings Institution and Heritage Foundation, and now, Lawrence Mishel, the longtime president of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), will step down at the end of 2017, according to the think tank.

A search committee led by EPI's Board of Directors will work to find a new president.  Mishel will remain at EPI as a senior economist.

Here is more from a press release:

Mishel first joined EPI in 1987 as research director, and assumed the role of president in 2002. In the three decades he has been with the organization, Mishel helped build EPI into the nation’s premier research organization focused on the labor market, inequality, and living standards for low- and middle-income families. He was a coauthor on every edition of EPI’s flagship publication, the State of Working America, a cornerstone of EPI research that was published every other year from 1988 to 2012.

In late March, EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey announced his retirement after 15 years at the think tank.  EPI said that in anticipation of Eisenbrey's retirement, it has hired two labor lawyers (Celine McNicholas and Marine von Wilpert) who will be a part of the Perkins Project on Worker Rights and Wages.

The Worker Rights and Wages Policy Watch, an online tracker providing up-to-the-minute updates on policy actions that affect working people, was recently launched under that Project.

In related EPI news, former Obama Administration Secretary of Labor Tom Perez has joined the think tank's Board of Directors.  He joins three other former labor secretaries on the board - Robert Reich and Alexis Herman (Clinton Administration) and Ray Marshall (Carter Administration).