Tim Congdon is one of the world's leading monetary analysts. He advised the UK's 1979-97 Conservative government on economic policy, serving as a member of the Treasury Panel (the so-called 'Wise Men' ) from 1992 to 1997. He is usually regarded as the UK's leading exponent of the 'monetarist' school of thought, and was influential in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the defence of 'Thatcherite monetarism'. In the macroeconomic bedlam of early 2009, he set up International Monetary Research Ltd. as a vehicle for commenting regularly on monetary developments and banking. Tim Congdon has been a successful businessman and investor, and is the founder and main patron of the Institute of International Monetary Research, as well as being its first Director. In January 2016, he handed over the Directorship to Dr Juan Castañeda, who was later succeeded by Damian Pudner.