Ellen Beatty was born in Illinois. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Accounting from the University of Illinois and an MBA with concentrations in Finance and Economics from the University of Chicago.
Ellen recently retired after a career in finance and administration that included senior leadership roles in both publicly traded corporations and large nonprofit organizations.
She began her career in public accounting and with firms in the upstream oil and gas industry. She later worked on the downstream side of the energy industry, including serving as Vice President, Finance for Quaker State Corporation before its merger with Pennzoil, and as Vice President, Finance for TXU Energy Corporation in Dallas during the transition to energy deregulation in Texas.
She then served as Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer of the Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit corporation that operates a federally funded research and development center.
She later joined NORC at the University of Chicago, formerly known as the National Opinion Research Center, where she served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer until her retirement.
Ellen is a certified public accountant and received a Sells Award for outstanding performance on the CPA examination. She is a member of Financial Executives International and was selected as an American Marshall Memorial Fellow in 2000.
Ellen summarizes her political history and views as follows:
My awareness of politics began at an early age. Starting around age 10, I had a newspaper route, which ensured that I was exposed to current events and political issues on a daily basis. Some of my earliest political memories include the inflation and gasoline shortages of the 1970s, the lingering effects of the Vietnam War, and the decline in public trust in national leadership and institutions.
My formal education and professional career both had a significant influence on my political outlook. Business school gave me an appreciation for the power of markets, competition, and incentives to solve many economic problems. As a result, I have generally been skeptical of government intervention when market-based solutions are available and effective.
Over time, I became increasingly aware of the limitations of markets as well as their strengths. Markets do not always account for externalities, and they do not guarantee that circumstances of birth or family resources will not limit an individual’s opportunity to develop his or her potential. I came to believe that a prosperous society such as the United States has a responsibility to help ensure that all citizens have a reasonable opportunity to succeed — and that it is in the best interest of the nation for everyone to have that opportunity.
My professional experience reinforced these views. Much of my career involved balancing the interests of organizations, shareholders, employees, customers, and other stakeholders. Those experiences taught me the importance of understanding tradeoffs, recognizing how policies affect different constituencies, and not allowing the pursuit of a perfect solution to become the enemy of a good one.
A question that continues to fascinate me is how and why some political leaders are able to connect with broad segments of the electorate while others with similar policy positions are not.
Overall, I would describe myself as somewhat left of center, with center-right views on many economic issues and a more libertarian perspective on social issues. I am very interested in the question of how centrist political candidates, whose positions often reflect the views of a large portion of the electorate, can successfully compete against more polarized candidates who appeal more strongly to emotion and ideology.