The Egyptian-American is chief economic adviser at Allianz and one of the world’s most widely followed economists LONDON: Mohamed El-Erian, the chief economic adviser at Allianz and one of the world’s most widely followed economists, was named on Tuesday as the new president of Queens’ College, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. El-Erian, who won a scholarship to study economics at Queens’ in 1977 and graduated with first class honors, will succeed Lord John Leonard Eatwell in October 2020, according to Queens’ College. El-Erian, who served as chief executive and co-chief investment officer at Allianz-owned Pimco from 2007-2014, is credited with identifying and coining the concept of the “New Normal” to describe the likely economic performance of advanced economies after the 2008 global financial crisis. The Egyptian-American has been named four years in a row to Foreign Policy’s list of “top 100 global thinkers.” A fixture on major news outlets including Reuters, CNBC, Bloomberg and the Financial Times, El-Erian is an academic at heart. After attending Cambridge for his undergraduate degree, he earned his masters and PhD in economics from Oxford while keeping close ties with Cambridge. He has served on the boards of several schools, universities and think tanks.