The popular Business and Economics Correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Paul Solman has been demystifying money matters (and, occasionally, art, sports and journalism itself) for over 25 years. With energy and wit he engages and empowers his audiences, from CEOs and MBAs to undergraduates, making business and economics comprehensible and fun.

In 2004 Solman won his second Peabody Award for his NewsHour report, “Jobless Recovery: Non-Working Numbers,” and was praised for giving “easy-to-understand explanations of complicated economic issues with clarity, humor and a laudable investigative spirit.” He also has won Emmy Awards in every decade since the ‘70’s, including one for his reporting on Microsoft, and has been named to TV Guide’s All-Star News “dream team.”
 
Using every device he can think of — from teaching the tricks of Enron’s “accounting alchemy” with a magic wand and disappearing dollars to explaining earnings growth with tortilla dough — Solman has illuminated hundreds of economics stories on topics both sober (NAFTA, Cuba, Social Security reform) and light (the workings of the circus and the NFL). “What I’m looking for is the most memorable image I can find to beguile audiences and plant the information in their heads,” says Solman. For the NewsHour, he has interviewed heads of state, bialy bakers, CEOs such as Jack Welch, Nobel laureates and inner-city kids performing Shakespeare.

In 2005 The NewsHour aired Solman’s seven-part series on China’s rise as a global contender. In spring 2006 he did a three-part series on the business response to global warming.

In his interactive programs for leaders and executives, Solman provides an expert’s perspective on global and economic trends that helps them prepare their organizations for change. When visiting colleges, in addition to lecturing, he likes to visit classes, spend time with faculty, and meet with campus newspaper and TV staffs. His mini-residencies include activities such as “The Takeover Game,” a simulation of a hostile corporate takeover, which he developed while teaching at Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.
 

Paul Solman is fabulous -- from translating Greenspanish to making the economy (almost) riveting -- his analyses are wonderfully clear, lively, and... dare I say it? Fun.

World Affairs Council of Philadelphia

Solman is co-author of Life and Death on the Corporate Battlefield, about which The New York Times wrote, “You can spend two years and $20,000 attending Harvard Business School [this was 1983], or you can read this book.”

A graduate of Brandeis University and former editor at Mother Jones magazine, he also has been a taxi driver, management consultant and kindergarten teacher.

Solman’s TV reports are used in college economics courses throughout the world. He has helped journalists and TV producers in Russia and Poland explain American capitalism. Solman also is the author and presenter of “Discovering Economics with Paul Solman,” a series of videos released by McGraw-Hill that he hopes will transform the way we teach introductory economics.