Raymond W. Baker is a businessman, author, and internationally respected authority on corruption, money laundering, and foreign policy issues. He has conducted business around the world, buying and building companies, consulting on anticorruption strategies, and advising on economic matters at the highest levels of government. These experiences confirm his observation that standard business practices, both legal and illegal, funnel money unseen and unrecorded across borders, heightening inequality and weakening democracy. 

Baker received a MacArthur Foundation grant to support in-depth research on illicit financial flows as a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. This research culminated in his first book, Capitalism’s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free-Market System, cited by the Financial Times as one of the “best business books of 2005.”

Baker founded Global Financial Integrity in Washington, DC, to focus on issues surrounding harmful economic practices. He serves on the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa and is a co-founder of the DC Forum, which advocates for financial transparency and accountability to strengthen democracy and capitalism.

Baker is a graduate of Harvard Business School and the Georgia Institute of Technology.