Robert Doar

Robert Doar is the President at the American Enterprise Institute. Doar joined AEI in 2014 to create a new body of work on poverty studies, after serving for more than 20 years in leadership positions in the social service programs of New York State and New York City under Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. AEI’s poverty studies program and the scholars in it have since become leading voices in the national discussion on the importance of work, family, and personal responsibility in human flourishing.

Doar has served also as a co-chair of the National Commission on Hunger and as a lead member of the AEI-Brookings Working Group on Poverty and Opportunity. He was editor of "A Safety Net That Works: Improving Federal Programs for Low-Income Americans" (AEI Press, 2017) and a contributing author to "This Way Up: New Thinking About Poverty and Economic Mobility" (2018); "Work, Skills, Community: Restoring Opportunity for the Working Class" (2018); and "Opportunity, Responsibility, and Security: A Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty and Restoring the American Dream" (2015).

In January 2019, Doar was selected by AEI’s Board of Trustees to be the Institute’s 12th president, succeeding Arthur Brooks on July 1, 2019. Doar leads one of the nation’s oldest and most respected public policy think tanks, which is dedicated to bolstering free enterprise and innovation, strengthening our communities, defending our nation’s founding values, and revitalizing the foundations of American defense.