Brian Wesbury

Brian Wesbury serves as Chief Economist at First Trust Advisors L.P., the financial services firm headquartered in Wheaton, Illinois, where he translates macroeconomic data into the kind of disciplined, forward-looking analysis that institutional investors and advisors rely on. His credibility with markets is earned rather than asserted: The Wall Street Journal ranked him the nation's number one U.S. economic forecaster in 2001, and USA Today named him among the country's top ten forecasters in 2004. For financial services event planners assembling a banking conference, wealth-management summit, or investment forum, that track record signals a voice the room will trust on the questions that matter most to their bottom line.

Wesbury's perspective is grounded in both policy and practice. He has served on the Academic Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago since 1999, and in 1995 and 1996 he was Chief Economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. In 2012 he was named a Fellow of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, where he works closely with its 4%-Growth Project. His career began in 1982 at the Harris Bank in Chicago, followed by senior economist roles at the Chicago Corporation and at Griffin, Kubik, Stephens, and Thompson, giving him a practitioner's read on how capital markets actually behave. He holds an M.B.A. from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Montana, which honored him with its Distinguished Alumni Award in 2011.