Lawrence Henry Summers is an American economist who served as the 71st United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001 and as director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010. He also served as president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006, where he is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor and director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School. In November 2023, Summers joined the board of directors of artificial general intelligence company OpenAI.

The National Economic Council (NEC) is the principal forum used by the president of the United States for the consideration of domestic and international economic policy matters with senior policymaking and Cabinet officials, and forms part of the Office of Policy Development which is within the Executive Office of the President of the United States.