Mercatus Center Annual Dinner
This event has reached capacity and we are no longer able to accept RSVPs. If you would like to be added to the waitlist or have any addition questions, please contact Caitlyn Schmidt at cschmidt@mercatus.gmu.edu or 703-993-4925.
This event is by invitation only and your invitation is non-transferrable.
Registration and Cocktail Reception: 6:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Dinner and Remarks: 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Event Speakers
The Mercatus Center Annual Dinner brings together an audience of distinguished scholars, senior congressional and agency staff, policy professionals, and Mercatus supporters from the corporate and foundation world.
Kai Ryssdal, host and senior editor of Marketplace, will be interviewed by Tyler Cowen, Mercatus Center’s General Director. Marketplace is the most widely heard program on business and the economy – radio or television, commercial or public broadcasting – in the country.
Since joining the flagship Marketplace broadcast in 2005, Kai has hosted the program from China, the Middle East, and dozens of cities – big and small – across the United States. Kai speaks regularly with CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies, start-up entrepreneurs, small business owners, and everyday participants in the American and global economies. He’s interviewed the leader of the free world four times – twice in the Oval Office, once on a folding chair in the middle of the Nevada desert. Kai first came to Marketplace in 2001 as the host of Marketplace Morning Report, where he covered the economic aftermath of the September 11th attacks, the collapse of Enron, and the slow buildup to the housing crash, the financial crisis, and the Great Recession.
His one and only big-time journalism award was, as it happens, for television; a 2012 Emmy for investigative journalism on a PBS FRONTLINE documentary about money in politics called Big Sky, Big Money. Kai has appeared often on CNN, CNBC and CBS News. His written work has been featured in the New York Times and The Atlantic magazine.
Before his career in broadcasting, Kai spent eight years in the United States Navy, flying from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt and, later, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. He also served in the United States Foreign Service, with postings to Ottawa, Canada and Beijing, China. Kai is a graduate of Emory University and Georgetown University.
Connect with him on Twitter @kairyssdal.
Dress for this event is business attire.
This event has been planned in accordance with the widely-attended event exception to congressional gift rules and government ethics memoranda. View sponsorship opportunities here.