Deborah Lehr

Chief Executive Officer & Managing Partner @ Edelman Global AdvisoryMember of Meridian Board of Trustees

  • Deborah Lehr, Chief Executive Officer of Edelman Global Advisory, Executive Director of the Paulson Institute, former Senior Advisor to the Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch, former Senior Managing Director at the New York Stock Exchange, former Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China, and former Director of Asian Affairs at the National Security Council.

Deborah Lehr serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Edelman Global Advisory,  a strategic business consulting firm. In addition, she is the Executive Director of the Paulson Institute, a think tank founded by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson located at the University of Chicago.

Deborah previously built and managed three successful consulting businesses representing diverse Western and Chinese companies such as Sesame Workshop, Tory Burch, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Pfizer, Sony Music, Time Warner and Boeing. She provided strategic advice and counsel on their growth in China and other markets.

In addition, she served as Senior Advisor to the Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch, was a Senior Managing Director at the New York Stock Exchange focused on emerging markets and was President of Stonebridge China, with offices in Beijing and Shanghai. Prior to joining Stonebridge, Deborah was a partner at Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, a global top-10 law firm, where she helped build a successful trade business.

Deborah also served in the U.S. Government where she was the Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China, a Director of Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, and involved in export control and trade policy issues at the Department of Commerce.

Deborah is the founder and serves as Chairman of the Antiquities Coalition, focused on fighting against the looting of cultural heritage by organized crime and terrorist organizations.

Deborah has lived and studied around the world, including China, England, France, and Germany. Her writings have been published in Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal, the South China Morning Post, U.S. News  and World Report, and Caixin Magazine,, among others. She has also appeared on television speaking about China as well as antiquities trafficking.

Deborah is on the Board of the National Geographic Society, the World Monuments Fund, the Middle East Institute, the International Advisory Board of the London School of Economics, and the Sesame Workshop Global Advisory Board. Deborah is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. UNESCO has nominated Deborah as one of its inaugural list of accomplished global women. She also received the prestigious Hadrian Award from the World Monument Fund for her work in fighting the illicit trade in antiquities.