Interview: Brad Lips, CEO of Atlas Network

“Any coherent system of morality begins with an appreciation of human dignity and wanting people to have as many choices to take control of their lives as possible.”

On July 28th Merion West‘s Henri Mattila was joined by Brad Lips, the chief executive officer of Atlas Network, an organization that partners with over 500 think tanks across the world to promote individual and economic freedom. The conversation included a discussion on the merits of what Mr. Lips refers to as a “freedom philosophy,” his thoughts on the current state of liberty in the United States and abroad, as well as an exploration of the work Atlas Network is doing in Ukraine amid the war there.

The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Could you begin by telling me about your background and how you ended up at Atlas Network?

I grew up in the Chicago area, wound up doing high school in Connecticut, and then my undergrad at Princeton. I then quickly went off to get my MBA at Emory University in Atlanta. And I was really fortunate to wind up with a great job on Wall Street for a couple of years in the mid-1990s. I felt like I learned so much in terms of practical skills and just appreciation for how the world works in those two years, while I was working in an equity research department at Smith Barney. But, at the same time, I found that I really cared about the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal, more than the finance page, which is what I was supposed to be studying. And I had a little bit of familiarity with the world of nonprofit think tanks: I had an uncle who exposed me to some of the work that comes out of pro-liberty think tanks. So I decided to consider a career change while I was still young enough to do something irresponsible. I took a massive pay cut to enter the liberty movement from where I’d been on Wall Street, and I really never looked back.