Tom Manning, a founding member of The Council, is a board director, corporate advisor, investor, educator, and former S&P 500 company CEO.

Tom currently serves on the Boards of Cresco Labs, one of the largest cannabis companies in the U.S., where he is Executive Chairman; CommScope (NASDAQ), a leading telecom and network technology manufacturer and Fortune 500 company; and, ChinData (NASDAQ), the leading hyperscale data center firm powering the cloud in the Asia Pacific region.  In the past, he served as a Director at Dun & Bradstreet and at five public companies in China – Clear Media, iSoftStone Holdings Limited, Asiainfo-Linkage, Gome Electrical Appliances Company, and the Bank of Communications – and seven private equity-backed companies in China, India, and the United States.

Tom is the former Chairman and CEO of Dun & Bradstreet (“D&B”), the global leader in corporate information and data analytics.  Prior to D&B, Tom worked and lived in Asia for nearly 20 years, serving as CEO of Cerberus Asia Operations & Advisory Limited, a subsidiary of Cerberus Capital Management, CEO of Capgemini Asia, a leading information technology services company, and CEO of Ernst & Young Consulting Asia.  He was a senior partner with Bain & Company in Silicon Valley and was also a practice leader with McKinsey & Company early in his career.

Currently a Senior Fellow in the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University, Tom is focusing on solutions to income inequality and social enterprise incubation through Harvard Square Labs, which he launched in 2020.  He is also an Executive-in-Residence at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago and has served on the adjunct faculty at The University of Chicago Law School, where he taught courses on corporate governance, private equity, China, and innovation.

Tom speaks Mandarin and holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in East Asian Studies from Harvard College.  He also Chairs the Board of the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra and serves as a director of The Basics, a pioneering firm in early childhood education.  A patent-holder and noted speaker on China, corporate governance, and globalization, he has been published, quoted, or profiled in various media, including Chief Executive, CNBC, IndustryWeek, NPR, IHT, Businessweek, Financial Times, WSJ, South China Morning Post, Journal of Private Equity, and Pepperdine Law Review.