Terence James O'Neill, Baron O'Neill of Gatley (born 17 March 1957) is a British economist best known for coining BRIC, the acronym that stands for Brazil, Russia, India, and China—the four once rapidly developing countries that were thought to challenge the global economic power of the developed G7 economies. He is also a former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and former Conservative government minister. As of January 2014, he is an Honorary Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester.
O'Neill was appointed Commercial Secretary to the Treasury in the Second Cameron Ministry, a position he held until his resignation on 23 September 2016. He chaired the UK's Independent Review into Antimicrobial Resistance for two years, which completed its work in May 2016. Since 2008, he has written monthly columns for international media organization Project Syndicate. He was the chairman of the Council of Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs for three years until 20 July 2021.
Career
O'Neill obtained a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1977 and a Master of Arts (MA) degree in economics from Sheffield University in 1978. He subsequently earned his PhD degree from the University of Surrey in 1982, with a thesis titled An empirical investigation into the OPEC surplus and its disposal. O'Neill began his career in finance working at Bank of America in 1982. In 1985 he joined Marine Midland Bank as Economist for their International Treasury Management Division. After Marine Midland was purchased by HSBC he joined Swiss Bank Corporation in 1988 where he was in charge of the fixed income research group, and he served as SBC's chief of global research. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1997 and he was appointed as the head of global economics research in 2001, which is also when he published the seminal BRIC paper. Jan Hatzius replaced O'Neill as chief economist after O'Neill moved to Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
In 2010, he was named chairman of Goldman Sachs's Division of Asset Management, a newly created position in which O'Neill managed over $800 billion in assets by "leverag[ing]" his "global perspective on world markets". He continues to publish research regarding the global economy, in addition to coming up with innovative investment strategies for clients. His new appointment was regarded as a symbol of Goldman's "efforts to reposition itself for Wall Street's post-crisis era", one in which Goldman Sachs is "bullish" about the fact that emerging markets are "the future". In 2011, he was included in the 50 Most Influential ranking of Bloomberg Markets magazine.
He retired from the firm in 2013. He is a currently on the International Advisory Board of the Centre for Rising Powers at the University of Cambridge. O'Neill sits on the QFINANCE Strategic Advisory Board. He is also a member of the board of Bruegel, the European think tank for international economics. O'Neill is chairman of the Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership Advisory Board, which advises on the growth of the Greater Manchester economy. On 2 July 2014, he was appointed by UK Prime Minister David Cameron to head an international commission to investigate global antimicrobial resistance. In 2014, O'Neill was awarded an Honorary Litt.D. degree by the University of Sheffield in recognition of his contribution to international economics. He has honorary degrees from the Institute of Education of the University of London, for his educational philanthropy, and from City University London for his services to banking and finance.
In 2018, Lord O'Neill published the book Superbugs: an Arms Race Against Bacteria co-written with Anthony McDonnell and Will Hall, which tells the story of drug resistant infections and outlines the policy interventions he believes necessary to stop them.
House of Lords
In 2015, he was created a Life Peer as Baron O'Neill of Gatley, of Gatley in the County of Greater Manchester, and took up an unpaid post in HM Government as the Commercial Secretary to the Treasury. In this role O'Neill's primary role was to work on the Northern Powerhouse project and to help reinvigorate trade with China. Following the resignation of David Cameron as Prime Minister his successor, Theresa May, kept O'Neill in post. In 2016, O'Neill resigned over concerns that May was not committed to the Northern Powerhouse project, making him the first member of May's ministry to resign.