President-elect Donald Trump's economic advisory panel will take a key role in "educating" him on a wide range of industrial and business issues, Mark Weinberger, chairman and chief executive officer of professional services firm EY, told CNBC.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Weinberger said that he and the 15 other members of the President's Strategic Policy Forum would aim to ensure the President-elect has a broad understanding of all business areas as he moves forward with his efforts to bring jobs back to the U.S.
"I think everyone's hopeful that we'll have a voice in educating him on things that we see in the workplace, about jobs, about the disruption that's going on, talk about issues such as income inequality, as well as what will be necessary to create more jobs and improve the economy," Weinberger said.
The EY CEO is joined on the panel by business leaders from firms including JPMorgan Chase, IBM, General Motors and Disney.
"It's a great group of people from very diverse industries and hopefully we'll have an impact," he added.
Weinberger said that the inception of the advisory group demonstrated Trump's understanding that businesses have to work together, particularly in the wake of a divisive election campaign.
However, he added that the President-elect was unlikely to experience a honeymoon period following his inauguration on Friday January 20, 2016. Instead, he will have to begin unveiling his policies in order to give Washington time for them to bed in.
"As we all know, the wheels of legislation in Washington move slower than Donald Trump talks and so it's going to take a bit of time to see how these policies shape. I think we're all optimistic but we're watching very closely."
