Conference Board

The Conference Board, founded in 1916 as the National Industrial Conference Board, is the oldest of the existing policy-discussion groups. It was originally a more narrowly focused organization with a primary interest within the business com¬munity itself. During the 1930’s and 1940’s it drifted to an extreme right-wing stance under the influence of its executive director, who often denounced other policy groups for their alleged desertion of the free-enterprise system.(Eakins, op.cit., chapter 5) Only with the retirement of this director in 1948 did the board move back into the mainstream and begin to assume its current role as a major voice of big business. Further change in the 1960’s was symbolized by the shortening of its name to Conference Board and the election of a CED trustee as its president. By 1977, when its president was selected by President Carter to chair the Federal Reserve Board, it was one of the most central and important of the policy groups.

The Conference Board has been innovative in developing international linkages. In 1961, in conjunction with the Stanford Research Institute, the board sponsored a week-long International Industrial Conference in San Francisco. This international gathering brought together 500 leaders in industry and finance from 60 countries to hear research reports and discuss common problems. The International Industrial Conference has met every four years since that time. Along with the “sister� committees which the CED has encouraged in numerous nations, the International Industrial Conference is one of the major institutions in the international policy discussion network that has been growing slowly since the 1950’s.