Speaker Profile

Ron Davison is the author of The Fourth Economy: Inventing Western Civilization and the forthcoming New Politics for the Next Economy, which draws on centuries of history, evolving economic theories, and systems thinking to argue that the United States is poised for a fifth economic era: an entrepreneurial economy capable of renewing trust in institutions and moving beyond today’s political and social fractures.

Ron’s perspective blends theory with lived experience. One of his earliest jobs, at age 13, involved riding horses to move cattle and driving truck, tractor and caterpillar equipment during alfalfa harvest on farms in western Montana. His most recent professional chapter spanned more than 25 years consulting with product development teams creating new products like computer chips, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals—often helping accelerate initiatives worth millions of dollars per day.

He earned a BA in Economics from UC Santa Cruz and an MA in Economics from San Diego State University. Early in his career, Ron managed a ComputerLand store during the pivotal moment when personal computers were transitioning from business tools to consumer technologies, the year Apple introduced the Macintosh. He later taught economics, worked in finance and engineering at General Dynamics, and was financial analyst and administrator for proposal and independent R&D funding for early technologies like neural networks.

Ron served as chief economist for the Vietnam Investment and Information Corporation in the 1990s, helping organize the first U.S.–Vietnam trade show in Hanoi after normalization of relations. He later taught 7-Habits and leadership seminars for the Covey Leadership Center and participated in the Franklin–Covey merger transition team synthesizing curriculums. 

Ron’s read of history as a series of distinct Americas, each focused on a different limit to progress, suggests you have the great stress and good fortune to be living through the emergence of a fifth America, one as different from the information economy before it as Lincoln’s industrial economy was from Jefferson’s agricultural economy.