Paul James Sheard (born November 25, 1954) is an Australian-American economist. Most recently he was Research Fellow and earlier M-RCBG Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, after previously being Vice Chairman of S&P Global. Sheard has held chief economist positions at Lehman Brothers, Nomura Securities, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, and S&P Global. Prior to entering financial markets in 1995, he was an academic economist based in Australia, Japan and the United States, specializing in the Japanese economy and the economics of firm organization. He was a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on the New Agenda for Fiscal and Monetary Policy (2020-2022), having been a member of the WEF's Global Future Council on the New Economic Agenda (2018-2020) and of its Global Agenda Council on the International Monetary System (2010-2012). He is a member of the board of the Foreign Policy Association and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bretton Woods Committee and the Economic Club of New York. He attends and speaks regularly at conferences around the world, and his views on the global economy and economic policy are frequently cited in the international press. Career Sheard was Kiyoshi Kojima Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australia-Japan Research Centre, ANU, Lecturer in Economics, and later Associate Professor of Economics at Osaka University. He held visiting scholar positions at Osaka University, the Bank of Japan, and Stanford University, where he was also visiting assistant professor of economics. In January 1995, Sheard became Japan Strategist for Baring Asset Management and later Head of Japan Equity Investments. In September 2000, he was appointed Chief Economist for Asia of Lehman Brothers and became Global Chief Economist of Lehman in April 2006. When Lehman failed in September 2008, after a stint at Barclays Capital, in November 2008 Sheard was appointed Global Chief Economist and Head of Economic Research at Nomura Securities, based in New York. In June 2012, he moved to Standard & Poor's Ratings Services as Global Chief Economist and Head of Global Economics and Research and a member of the firm's executive committee, later becoming Chief Economist and Executive Vice President of S&P Global, the parent firm. Sheard served as a member of committees of the Japanese Government's Economic Deliberation Council, in 1997-98 as an appointee of Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and in 1998-99 as an appointee of Prime Minister