Jim Guest became President and Chief Executive Officer of Consumers Union (CU) in February 2001 after a long career in public service and the consumer interest, including 21 years as Chair of CU’s Board of Directors. Consumers Union is an expert, independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to work for a fair, just, and safe marketplace for all consumers. CU publishes Consumer Reports, ConsumerReports.org, and other publications and Web sites for the benefit of consumers. The organization was founded in 1936 when advertising first flooded the mass media. Consumers lacked any reliable source of information they could depend on to help them distinguish hype from fact and good products from bad ones. Since then CU has filled that vacuum with a broad range of consumer information and a succession of presidents serving as passionate and outspoken consumer champions.

Mr. Guest continues that tradition, fighting on Capitol Hill and in the media for the consumer’s right-to-know about, and be protected from, unsafe and misleading products and services. Under his leadership, the organization is currently pursuing a high-profile campaign to improve the safety, quality, accessibility, and value of the health-care marketplace. This has included the successful launch of several new initiatives such as ConsumerReportsHealth.org and the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, which serve to educate and empower consumers to make more informed health-care decisions and to help change the market.

In 2009, Mr. Guest was named to the annual “100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare” by Modern HealthCare magazine. Listed as number eleven, Guest was the only non-profit advocate among the top 30 individuals on the list – and shares the top echelon with the nation’s most prominent officeholders, business leaders, and health thinkers. As an active member of the health-care community, Guest serves on several influential committees, including as a member of the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine and the chair of the Roundtable’s Communication Innovation Collaborative. The IOM provides independent, objective, evidence-based health advice to policymakers, health professionals, the private sector, and the public. Guest was also appointed to an IOM panel that was formed as a result of Congress’ authorization of $1.1 billion for "comparative effectiveness research” in the economic stimulus legislation passed in 2009. The panel provided a list of 100 research priorities and recommendations to Congress and the Administration that will serve as a guidepost for spending the $1.1 billion.

Your browser may not support display of this image. As the CEO of one of the leading nonprofits in America, Mr. Guest has transformed the mission-driven organization into a multimedia publisher with more than 8 million subscribers to CU’s products and services and 800,000 online activists. He oversees revenues of approximately $250 million and a staff of more than 600, who work primarily at CU’s headquarters in Yonkers, which houses the organization’s 50-state-of-the-art labs, publishing, research, and advocacy operations. In addition, CU has a 327-acre Auto Test Center in East Haddam, CT, and three advocacy offices in Washington, Austin, and San Francisco. Mr. Guest also serves as the Vice-President of Consumers International, a global federation of 220 consumer organizations from 115 countries.

Mr. Guest’s public service career has spanned more than three decades. After graduating from Harvard Law School and completing a Woodrow Wilson fellowship in economics at MIT, he worked as legislative assistant to Senator Ted Kennedy. In the early 1970s, Mr. Guest moved to Vermont where he served as Banking and Insurance Commissioner, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Development and Community Affairs.

Prior to becoming President of Consumers Union, he headed several public policy and advocacy groups including Handgun Control Inc. and the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence as well as Planned Parenthood of Maryland. He was also the founding Executive Director of the American Pain Foundation, a national consumer information, education, and advocacy organization for pain prevention and management.

Mr. Guest credits his very first job for introducing him to one of his biggest influences in consumer advocacy. He worked as the paperboy for Dr. Colston Warne—the first Chair of CU’s Board of Directors and a leader in the consumer movement.

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