G. Edward DeSeve

As Special Advisor to President Barack Obama, Mr. DeSeve oversaw the successful implementation of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

He is currently the Coordinator of the Agile Government Center at the National Academy of Public Administration. He is also the Executive Fellow at the IBM Center for the Business of Government and a Senior Advisor at GovNavigators.

His career has included work in finance, academia and government.

Service at the federal level included being Controller and Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget as well as the Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was the Director of Finance for the City of Philadelphia and served as a Special Assistant to the Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

He held a tenured professorship of Public Management and Finance at the University of Maryland and was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. At the Brookings Institution, he was the Executive in Residence at the Executive Education Program.

At each level of government, Mr. DeSeve oversaw complex fiscal affairs. He was instrumental in balancing Philadelphia’s budget during two fiscal crises. At OMB, he helped balance the federal budget for the first time in more than a generation. While at OMB, he oversaw the fiscal reforms of the District of Columbia that led to its return to investment grade ratings with strong budget and cash surpluses.

In the Private Sector, he founded the nation’s largest financial advisory firm for state and local governments- Public Financial Management. He was also a managing director at Merrill Lynch in their public finance department.

He is the author of numerous publications including, The Presidential Appointees’ Handbook (Second Edition Brookings 2017). At the National Academy of Public Administration, he served as Vice Chair and was awarded the George Graham award for outstanding service in 2021. He was also awarded the Kenneth Howard award for career public service in financial management by the American Society of Public Administration.

He is a graduate of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and has a Master’s in Public Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.