Jonathan Marc Orszag is an American economist. He is a Senior Managing Director at Compass Lexecon, LLC, an economic consulting firm. Orszag was a co-founder of Compass, which was sold to FTI Consulting, Inc. in 2006. Since 2007, Orszag has been named one of the foremost competition economists in The International Who's Who of Competition Economists. Global Competition Review likewise identified Orszag as one of the leading young competition economists in the world.
In 1994, Orszag was asked by Princeton economist Alan Krueger to serve as the Special Assistant to the Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. Orszag next moved to the White House in 1995 to serve as an Economic Policy Advisor on President Bill Clinton's National Economic Council. In 1999, the Corporation for Enterprise Development gave Orszag its leadership award for "forging innovative public policies to expand economic opportunity in America." Orszag served as the Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and Director of the Office of Policy and Strategic Planning from 1999 to 2000. From 2000 to 2003, the Governor of California appointed Orszag to both the California Workforce Investment Board and the Governor's Technology Advisory Group.
Private sector
When Orszag left government, he founded with his brother Peter, Sebago Associates, the predecessor firm to Compass Lexecon. Orszag co-runs Compass Lexecon with Daniel Fischel. Compass Lexecon has been named by the Global Competition Review as the leading firm in the industry, stating "Compass Lexecon reigns supreme once more" in its annual ranking of competition economics firms. In 2018, Orszag was named as one of the "truly outstanding" competition economists by Who’s Who Legal in their annual survey of antitrust practitioners. Orszag has worked on some of the most important antitrust matters in the past decade and a half, including testifying before the European Court of First Instance in the seminal Microsoft case. Orszag has also worked on a number of large mergers, including Aetna/Humana, GE/Electrolux, Agrium/Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, Orbitz/Expedia, OfficeMax/Office Depot, Staples/Office Depot, Omnicom/Publicis, Entercom/CBS Radio, AT&T/T-Mobile, Delta/Northwest, the Microsoft/Yahoo! search deal, Siemens/Dresser-Rand, and Global Crossing/Level 3. Orszag served as an expert witness in "HP v Oracle" in which a California jury awarded HP $3 billion in damages. From 2009 to 2016, Orszag was a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and has also served as a Fellow at the University of Southern California's Center for Communication Law & Policy. Orszag currently teaches merger analysis at the UCLA School of Law. Orszag is a member of the board of directors of JMP Securities, Inc.
Personal life
Orszag is married to entertainment journalist . They were married on June 14, 2014 in a ceremony at Baker's Bay Golf & Ocean Club, Bahamas with President Clinton in attendance. They were honored at the 2015 for their contributions to cancer research. They have three children and two black labs. Orszag has played the top 100 golf courses in the world, a feat that only three dozen or so people have done. Orszag is a member of the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and the Tiger Woods Foundation. He serves as a Trustee of The First Tee. He is also a member of the Good+ Foundation's .
