The Conference Board, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit business membership and research organization. It counts over 1,000 public and private corporations and other organizations as members, encompassing 60 countries. The Board convenes conferences and peer-learning groups, conducts economic and business management research, and publishes several widely tracked economic indicators.

History

The organization was founded in 1916 as the National Industrial Conference Board (NICB). At the time, tensions between labor and management in the United States were seen as potentially explosive in the wake of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 and the Ludlow Massacre in 1914. In 1915, presidents of twelve major corporations in the United States and six leading industry associations met in Yama, New York to formulate the business community's response to continued labor unrest and growing public criticism. After additional crisis meetings, the National Industrial Conference Board was officially founded on May 5, 1916, at the Hotel Gramatan in Bronxville, New York. Although many of the organizations’ founders—including former AT&T president Frederick P. Fish and General Electric executive Magnus W. Alexander, its first president—had supported the open-shop movement; by 1916, they regarded national unions such as the American Federation of Labor as permanent fixtures of the American economy, and urged negotiation and concord. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, the National War Labor Board formed by President Woodrow Wilson asked the NICB to formulate plans that would keep war industries running and strife-free. Its recommendations—based on cooperation between representatives of employers, employees, and government—were adopted in full. Though often mistrusted in its early years as an “employers union” funding studies against the labor movement, the non-profit NICB was also seen “as a spokesman for the so-called progressive wing of the business community [and] produced hundreds of research reports on economic and social issues facing the United States.” Pioneering research published in this period include Woman Workers and Labor Supply, The Eight-Hour Day Defined, U.S. Cost of Living Index, and a series of reports on Workers' Compensation Acts in The United States. The organization today remains funded by the contributions of members, often Fortune 500 companies. By the 1930s, however, it had already lost most of its character as an industry lobby. Virgil Jordan, a writer and economist who replaced Alexander as president on the latter's death in 1932, established a Bureau of Economic Audit and Control to offer members and the public an independent source of studies on unemployment, pensions, healthcare, and related issues in the midst of the Great Depression, when many questioned the credibility of the government's economic statistics. Unions soon joined the NICB alongside corporations for access to its research, conferences, and executive network. The organization is considered an unbiased "trusted source for statistics and trends, second only to perhaps the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics". After World War II, it expanded to non-U.S. members for the first time. In 1954, it founded The Conference Board of Canada in Montreal, which was spun off as an independent non-profit in 1981. In 1959, its first overseas CEO-level was held in Torquay, England, bringing together executives and board presidents from the US, UK, and Canada. In January 1970, the National Industrial Conference Board officially changed its name to The Conference Board. This followed the launch in 1967 of the U.S. Consumer Confidence Index, a monthly survey of households that remains its flagship economic indicator. In 1976, it added the Measure of CEO Confidence, which tracks the attitudes of chief executives regarding economic conditions overall and within their industry (in conjunction with The Business Council). In 1996, the U.S. Department of Commerce selected The Conference Board to produce and distribute the US leading economic indicator series. In 2006, The Conference Board established its China Center for Economic and Business in Beijing as a resource for senior executives of multinational companies. In 2015, the Committee for Economic Development (CED) merged with The Conference Board as its US public-policy center. The Conference Board has offices in New York, Brussels, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Regional Centers

The Conference Board produces research, convenes conferences, and organizes executive peer-learning councils through regional centers. In the United States, it currently operates five Centers from New York City: In Europe, The Conference Board hosts three Centers: In the Asia-Pacific region, the organization hosts three Centers: Additionally, The Conference Board operates a China Center for executives of multinational companies.

Economic indicators and data

The Conference Board publishes a number of regular indicators for United States and international economies that are widely tracked by investors, business leaders, and policy makers. They include:

Other research

The Conference Board's research reports and experts are often featured in a wide range of global business media—from specialist trade publications to the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Bloomberg News, Forbes and Fortune. Notable examples include:

Membership and professional development

The organization is considered a pioneer in professional councils, which were "created as a way to guide business leaders through boom and bust cycles." Each council is a invitation-only, self-governed group of executives. Each year, around 2,500 executives participate in The Conference Board councils. These range from networks organized for specific C-suite titles—including multiple councils for chief financial officers, chief human resources officers, chief legal officers, and corporate treasurers—to those focused on narrower areas of expertise or emerging business challenges, such as artificial intelligence.

Awards

The Conference Board has received multiple awards:

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