Martin Fleming
Martin Fleming (born March 19, 1953) is an American economist and business executive. He works as a Research Scientist at MIT’s FutureTech Lab and is a Fellow of The Productivity Institute in the United Kingdom. From 2010 to 2019 he was IBM’s Chief Economist and Chief Analytics Officer, where he provided weekly macroeconomic briefings to IBM’s top leaders and led key analytics and AI initiatives in a cloud environment. He also produced IBM’s Global Economic Outlook.
Education and early career: Fleming earned a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 1974, followed by an M.A. in Economics (1976) and a Ph.D. in Economics (1980) from Tufts University. He began as a research assistant at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. In 1986 he joined Cahners Business Information (later Reed-Elsevier) and became Vice President of Strategy in 1991. In 1996 he became a principal economic consultant at Abt Associates.
IBM years: At IBM, Fleming led the Emerging Business Opportunity program and managed planning and strategy for global sales and distribution. He joined the Corporate Strategy team in 2006 and chaired the Smarter Planet committee, which focused on reducing energy use and expanding eco-friendly products.
Recent work and projects: After leaving IBM, Fleming served as Chief Revenue Scientist at Varicent from 2020 to 2024 and has worked as a consultant to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. He remains active with economic and productivity groups, including The Productivity Institute, the Conference of Business Economists, NABE, and the Brookings Productivity Measurement Initiative. He has also chaired committees on economics statistics and served on several boards, including the Boston Association of Business Economists (where he was president).
Publication: Fleming’s first book, Breakthrough: A Growth Revolution, was published in October 2022 by Business Expert Press. The book argues for a Growth and Fairness Agenda to drive post-pandemic growth by aligning government, business, and workers.
Personal life: Fleming was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. He married Patricia Marie Magnan in 1974, and they have two children.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 10:24 (CET).