Oren Cass is the founder and chief economist of American Compass, a contributing editor for the Financial Times, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and a distinguished fellow at the University of Virginia’s Karsh Center for Law and Democracy. He is the author of The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America, which Vice President JD Vance has called “a brilliant book, and among the most important I’ve ever read,” and editor of The New Conservatives: Restoring America’s Commitment to Family, Community, and Industry. 

His impressively elite credentials include an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart; panel discussions at the Aspen Ideas Festival, World Economic Forum in Davos, and the American Economics Association annual meeting; events at all eight Ivy League universities; a book launch at the 92nd Street Y in New York City; and his plenary address to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters at their 31st International Convention.

From 2005 to 2015, Cass worked as a management consultant in Bain & Company’s Boston and Delhi offices. During this period, he also earned his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was elected vice president and treasurer of the Harvard Law Review and oversaw the journal’s budget and operations. While still in law school, Cass also became domestic policy director for Governor Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, editing and producing the campaign’s “jobs book” and developing its domestic policy strategy, proposals, and research. 

He joined the Manhattan Institute as a senior fellow in 2015 and became a prolific scholar, publishing more than 15 reports for the institute, editing its popular “Issues 2016” and “Issues 2020” series, testifying before seven congressional committees, and speaking on dozens of college campuses. He founded American Compass at the start of 2020.