Our People

Biography

Peter A. Reiling is Executive Vice President for Leadership and Seminar Programs and Executive Director of the Henry Crown Fellowship Program at the Aspen Institute. In these roles, he oversees the Institute's growing portfolio of leadership initiatives (the Aspen Global Leadership Network) and seminars (including The Aspen Seminar, offered at the Institute since 1950) as well as its flagship leadership program.

Peter is a trustee, officer, and senior moderator of the Aspen Institute, a Henry Crown Fellow (Class of 1998), and the founder of the Africa Leadership Initiative (ALI), a joint venture between the Aspen Institute and five African business leaders. ALI has since been replicated in Central America as "CALI", in India as "ILI" and in the Middle East as “MELI”, with plans to expand into China and Central Europe in 2010. Similar programs have also been launched in the fields of politics, education and the environment with plans to expand into health and social entrepreneurship. The goal of all these ventures is to stimulate a new generation of accomplished, entrepreneurial leaders to play a greater role in the social and political development of their communities and countries.

Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, from 1996 to 2004, Peter was President and CEO of TechnoServe, an international organization helping entrepreneurs across Africa, Latin America, India and Central Europe to build businesses in their communities (www.technoserve.org). He is co-founder of the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs and currently serves as chairman of the board of the CALI Foundation as well as on the boards of ALI/East Africa, ALI/West Africa, ALI/South Africa, Agora Partnerships and the Energy Access Foundation. Peter is a former adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and guest lecturer at the Institute for Developing Economies in Tokyo. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations as well as the Bretton Woods Committee, and was named "Outstanding Social Entrepreneur" by the Schwab Foundation in Geneva. A graduate of Georgetown University (BSFS) and the University of California/Berkeley (MBA), with additional studies at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Peter is married to Denise Byrne and is the father of two children, Dylan and Eva Luna.