Deborah Wince-Smith

Deborah L. Wince-Smith is President of the Council on Competitiveness, a forum for elevating national competitiveness to the forefront of national consciousness. She is an internationally recognized expert on science and technology policy, innovation strategy, technology commercialization, and global competition.

Wince-Smith serves as corporate chair and director of several high technology companies, as well as on boards, committees, and policy councils of numerous national nonprofit organizations, including the University of Chicago Board of Governors for Argonne National Laboratory, the Council of the Woodrow Wilson Center, the University of California Review Committees for Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Pilgrims of the United States, and the International Women's Forum. Most recently, Wince-Smith was appointed by the Secretary of Energy to be a member of the Secretary's Task Force on the Future of Science Program. She is a trustee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

A Senior Fellow at the Council since 1993, Wince-Smith served as the first Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy in the Department of Commerce Technology Administration from 1989 to 1993. In that capacity, she developed technology policies and national initiatives to strengthen U.S. productivity and economic competitiveness. She served on White House policy councils, chaired the Interagency Committee on Federal Technology Transfer, and directed the President's National Technology Initiative. She was also the U.S. representative to the multilateral Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Consortium with government and private sector leaders from the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Canada.

During the Reagan Administration, Wince-Smith served as the Assistant Director for International Affairs and Competitiveness in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. As a Program Manager at the National Science Foundation from 1976-1984, she managed U.S. research programs with Eastern European countries and U.S. universities.

Trained as a classical archaeologist, Wince-Smith graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna cum Laude from Vassar College and received her master's degree from King's College, Cambridge University. She is a frequent speaker at conferences and symposia and an author on technology policy and innovation.