In a time of ever accelerating technological change and business transformation, the Council on Competitiveness shapes policies and runs programs to jump-start productivity and grow America's economy. The Council's membership is diverse and nonpartisan, representing the major sectors of the economy – CEOs, university presidents, labor leaders and national lab directors.

Together, we work to ensure U.S. prosperity by advancing a pro-growth policy agenda in Washington, DC, and then we take action ourselves convening program initiatives across the country aimed at creating public-private partnerships where new technologies are born. These member-led initiatives are shaped around the areas of innovation frontiers, CTO policy advocacy, advanced computing, and energy and manufacturing.  

The roots of the Council trace back to 1986 during the Reagan-era Commission on Industrial Competitiveness, chaired by Hewlett-Packard CEO John Young. At the end of the Commission’s work, Young created the private sector Council on Competitiveness. At the time, U.S. competitiveness was being challenged by the rise of international competition from countries such as Japan and Germany. While the country names may have changed, today's threats to our economy have only grown through globalization. Today's competition is a race to see who will innovate and develop key technologies in artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and 3D printing, to name a few. Future prosperity and an increased standard of living is in the balance.