NCAFP - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Vice President for New Initiatives and a Distinguished Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Aaron David Miller is currently the Vice President for New Initiatives and a Distinguished Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Between 2006 and 2008, he was a Public Policy Scholar when he wrote his fourth book The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace (Bantam, 2008). His other books include The Arab States and the Palestine Question: Between Ideology and Self Interest, The PLO and the Politics of Survival, and The Search for Security, Saudi Arabian Oil and American Foreign Policy.
For the prior two decades, he served at the Department of State as an advisor to Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State, where he helped formulate U.S. policy on the Middle East and the Arab-Israel peace process, most recently as the Senior Advisor for Arab-Israeli Negotiations. He also served as the Deputy Special Middle East Coordinator for Arab-Israeli Negotiations, Senior Member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and in the Office of the Historian. He has received the department's Distinguished, Superior, and Meritorious Honor Awards.
Mr. Miller received his Ph.D. in American Diplomatic and Middle East History from the University of Michigan in 1977 and joined the State Department the following year. During 1982 and 1983, he was a Council on Foreign Relations fellow and a resident scholar at the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies. In 1984 he served a temporary tour at the American Embassy in Amman, Jordan. Between 1998 and 2000, Mr. Miller served on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. After leaving the state department, Mr. Miller served as president of Seeds of Peace from January 2003 until January 2006. Seeds of Peace is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering young leaders from regions of conflict with the leadership skills required to advance reconciliation and coexistence (www.seedsofpeace.org).
His media and speaking appearances include CNN (including "American Morning," "Wolf Blitzer Reports,") "The Newshour with Jim Lehrer," FOX News, "The NBC Nightly News," "CBS Evening News," National Public Radio, the BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Al Arabiya, and Al Jazeera. Mr. Miller has also been a featured presenter for the World Economic Forum in Davos and Amman, Harvard University, Columbia University, New York University, University of California at Berkeley, The City Club of Cleveland, Chatham House, and The International Institute for Strategic Studies. His articles have appeared in newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and The International Herald Tribune.
Job Titles:
- Program Manager
- Program Manager at the National Committee
Amanda Ghanooni is a Program Manager at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, where she supports member engagement, public programming, outreach, and Track II dialogues.
Amanda was previously an associate at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs where she managed three outreach programs as well as oversaw operations, research initiatives, and international conferences for the Asia Dialogues department. She has worked extensively in education and research centers, including the NYC Department of Education, Strategy Risks Inc., Parsons School of Design, and the International Center of Photography.
She earned a master's in international affairs from The New School University and serves as a committee member for the Young Patrons Council for Off-The-Record foreign policy forum.
Job Titles:
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts
Ambassador Eikenberry is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, co-directs the Academy's project on civil wars, violence, and international responses, and serves on the Academy's Committee on International Security Studies. He is member of the Task Force on Prevention and Fragility mandated by the United States Congress, and of the Task Force on U.S. Policy Toward China sponsored by the Asia Society and University of California San Diego 21 st Century China Program.
Harry K. Thomas Jr. is a Senior Kissinger Fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute, a private business consultant and an international affairs lecturer. Over his 34-year Foreign Service career, he represented the United States abroad as Ambassador three times and served in senior positions at the State Department and the White House. He retired in March 2018 with the rank of Career Minister.
He served as ambassador to Zimbabwe, the Philippines and Bangladesh. Ambassador Thomas also served as the State Department's Executive Secretary and Special Assistant to Secretary Rice, Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources, Director for South Asia at the National Security Council and Director of the Operations Center.
Ambassador Thomas speaks Spanish, Hindi, Bengali and conversational Tagalog. He is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross and holds a master's from Columbia University. Ambassador Thomas holds Honorary Doctorates from the College of the Holy Cross, Loyola University of Maryland and Angeles University Foundation of the Philippines and was the Commencement Speaker at these institutions.
He is a member of the College of the Holy Cross and Care for the Homeless Board of Trustees and Chairperson of the Winter4Kids Board of Trustees. Ambassador Thomas is the recipient of the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award; the Arnold L. Raphel Memorial Award for Mentoring; the Senior Foreign Service Presidential Award and several Superior Honor and Meritorious Honor Awards; the Order of Sikatuna of the Philippines for Exceptional Service and the In Hoc Signo Vinces Award from the College of the Holy Cross.
He is married to Mithi Aquino-Thomas and has three adult children. They reside in Fairfax, Virginia. He is a fervent fan of New York sports teams, enjoys snorkeling, golf and connecting with social media friends in the global community.
Ambassador Hunter was a Senior Fellow at the Overseas Development Council ('70-'73), Research Associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London ('67-'69), and Director of European Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Twice recipient of Department of Defense Medial for Distinguished Public Service, decorated by Hungarian, Lithuanian and Polish governments, and received Leadership Award of the European Institute.
J. STAPLETON ROY is Distinguished Scholar and Founding Director Emeritus of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.
Ambassador Roy was born in China, where his parents were educational missionaries, spending much of his youth there during the upheavals of World War II and the communist revolution. He joined the US Foreign Service immediately after graduating from Princeton in 1956, retiring 45 years later with the rank of Career Ambassador, the highest in the service. In 1978 he participated in the secret negotiations that led to the establishment of US-PRC diplomatic relations. During a career focused on East Asia and the Soviet Union, Ambassador Roy's ambassadorial assignments included Singapore, the People's Republic of China, and Indonesia. His final post with the State Department was as Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research.
Following his retirement from the State Department in 2001, Ambassador Roy joined Kissinger Associates, Inc., a strategic consulting firm, becoming Vice Chairman in 2006. In September 2008, he moved to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars to head the newly created Kissinger Institute, while continuing as a Senior Advisor to Kissinger Associates. In 2001 he received Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson Award for Distinguished Public Service.
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President International Relations and Member of the Executive Council
Job Titles:
- President and CEO of Soderberg Global Solutions
Job Titles:
- Ambassador
- Chairman Emeritus of the International Rescue Committee
WINSTON LORD is Chairman Emeritus of the International Rescue Committee and former Ambassador to China. The IRC, the largest non-sectarian organization that both helps refugees aboard and resettles them in the United States, operates in some forty countries and twenty-five cities.
For over four decades Ambassador Lord has been at the center of U.S.-China relations. Throughout the 1970s Lord accompanied Presidents Nixon and Ford and Henry Kissinger on all nine trips to China. From 1969 to 1973 he was on the National Security Council staff and Special Assistant to the NSC advisor. From 1973 to 1977 he was the State Department's Director of Policy Planning. From 1977 to 1985 he was the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and throughout the early 1990s served as chairman for the National Endowment for Democracy and the Carnegie Endowment National Commission on America and the New World. He also served as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs from 1993 to 1997.
Ambassador Lord holds a B.A. from Yale (Magna Cum Laude) and finished first in his class at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy while studying for his M.A. He has received several honorary degrees, plus the State Department's Distinguished Honor Award and the Defense Department's Outstanding Performance Award. Ambassador Lord has provided commentary for major TV networks and his articles have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Time and Foreign Affairs.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Managing Director of Strategy
Andrew L. Busser is Managing Director of Strategy located in Pitcairn's New York office. Andy's primary roles are to advise wealthy families on long-term strategic investment and wealth matters as well as to cultivate, manage, and deepen relationships with families and single family offices both in the New York region and nationally.
With over 25 years as an advisor, investment manager, and strategy consultant, Andy has extensive experience advising families, individuals, and single family offices. Most recently, Andy was a partner at Symphony Capital, a healthcare-focused investment manager of private equity and hedge funds. Prior to that, he co-founded Wilkerson Partners, a management consulting and advisory firm that worked with wealthy families, investors and management teams with a focus on the healthcare industry, and he served as a management consultant at The Wilkerson Group/IBM Healthcare Consulting. Andy began his career in commercial management at The DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical Co.
Job Titles:
- Relations Project Director
Professor BERNARD E. BROWN, transatlantic Relations Project Director. Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the City University of New York (Graduate School), he has also taught or lectured at universities in France, Britain, Canada, India, Senegal, and Vietnam. He is author, coauthor, or editor of over a dozen books on comparative politics and political theory. Among his most recent articles in the journal, American Foreign Policy Interests: "God and Man in the French Riots" (June 2007); "Anti-Americanism and Me" (February 2006); "A Constitution for Europe" (December 2005); "The United States and Europe: Partners, Rivals, Enemies?" (April 2004); "Charles Kupchan on The End of the American Era" (December 2003); "Europe Against America: A New Superpower Rivalry?" He has received numerous awards, including a Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, and several Fulbrights.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Near Eastern Studies
BERNARD HAYKEL is professor of Near Eastern Studies and the director of the Transregional Institute for the Study of the Middle East and North Africa at Princeton University. He was formerly associate professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern history at New York University. Haykel's primary research interests center on Islamic political movements and legal thought. Currently, he studies the history and politics of the Arabian Peninsula and Islamism. He has published extensively on the Salafi movement in both its pre-modern and modern manifestations. Haykel's next book is on the religious politics of Saudi Arabia since the 1950s and will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2013. He is also the author of Revival and Reform in Islam: The Legacy of Muhammad al-Shawkani, (Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Trustee
- Chief of the Public Corruption Unit
Brendan R. McGuire is a partner with the law firm WilmerHale. Mr. McGuire advises clients on managing, anticipating and mitigating complex legal and regulatory issues related to white-collar enforcement, as well as money laundering, national security, cybersecurity and privacy, and export controls and economic sanctions. An accomplished trial lawyer and litigator, he joined the firm after serving for more than 10 years as an Assistant US Attorney in the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.
During his tenure as Assistant US Attorney, Mr. McGuire was appointed to lead the two most sensitive units within the Southern District's Criminal Division. First, he served as Chief of the Public Corruption Unit for three years, and then, more recently, as Chief of the Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit. Prior to his supervisory positions, as a member of the Terrorism Unit, Mr. McGuire handled some of the most significant terrorism cases within the Department of Justice, including the 2009 kidnapping of Captain Richard Phillips by Somali pirates on the Indian Ocean, the 2010 prosecution of Faisal Shahzad for the attempted bombing of Times Square, and the 2011 prosecution of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for conspiring to kill Americans.
As Chief of the Public Corruption Unit, Mr. McGuire led some of the most notable investigations and prosecutions of New York officials in recent years, as well as cases involving violations of the federal fraud and bribery statutes, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, securities fraud, healthcare fraud and tax evasion. He also oversaw multiple corporate prosecutions, including the settlement of the largest municipal fraud case in history.
During his tenure as Chief of the Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit, Mr. McGuire supervised investigations and prosecutions of international and domestic terrorism, money laundering, violations of economic sanctions and export control laws, espionage and global narcotics trafficking. In that position, he regularly coordinated criminal investigations with the intelligence community, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Defense, the Department of State and foreign governments.
Prior to his government service, Mr. McGuire practiced as a litigator at two prominent New York law firms where he specialized in white-collar defense and corporate investigations. He also clerked for the Honorable Peter K. Leisure of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Job Titles:
- Manager
- Senior Research Associate
Charles Landow is a Senior Research Associate and Manager at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, supporting Belfer Center Director Meghan O'Sullivan. He is also an Adjunct Instructor of Political Science at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Landow came to the Belfer Center after serving as chief of staff for former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin. He previously held several roles at the Council on Foreign Relations, including special assistant for research to President Richard Haass, director of the Model Diplomacy educational simulation, and associate director of a research program on economic and political development. In 2013, Landow served as research director for the chair and vice chair of multi-party political negotiations in Northern Ireland. He worked earlier in his career at the International Labour Organization in Geneva and for Senator E. Benjamin Nelson in Washington.
Landow earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Columbia University and a master's degree in international affairs from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. His writings on international affairs and philanthropy have appeared in such outlets as the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, ForeignPolicy.com, and CFR.org. He is an editor of Pathways to Freedom: Political and Economic Lessons From Democratic Transitions (2013). A native of Omaha, Landow speaks fluent French, advanced Spanish, and basic German and Italian.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Executive Secretary and Director of the Executive Secretariat Staff
David I. Adelman - Chief Legal Officer, Managing Director
Job Titles:
- Asset Manager
- General Counsel
- Managing Director
- Trustee
Ambassador (ret.) David Adelman is Managing Director and General Counsel for asset manager Krane Funds Advisors. He also serves as an advisor to several private equity firms. He previously was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong and partner in two global law firms practicing law in New York, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta. David was the 15th United States Ambassador to Singapore serving during the first term of the Obama-Biden Administration.
He previously was an appointed member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore's Capital Markets Committee and served on the Executive Board of the Hong Kong Treasury Markets Association. David was a member of the Board of Governors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.
David is a Trustee of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Advisory Board of the Israel-Asia Center. He is an Adjunct Professor at New York University where he teaches international relations of the Asia-Pacific region at the graduate level. David received his J.D. from Emory University where he is a recipient of the Emory Medal. He earned an M.P.A from Georgia State University and B.A. from the University of Georgia. David and his wife Caroline reside in New York City and have three adult children.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Program on Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding at American University
DAVID L. PHILLIPS is director of the Program on Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding at American University in Washington, D.C.. Currently he is also a research scholar at the Center for Study of Human Rights at Columbia University and adjunct associate professor at New York University's Graduate School of Politics. Phillips has worked as a senior adviser to the United Nations Secretariat and as a foreign affairs expert and senior adviser to the U.S. Department of State. He has held positions as a visiting scholar at Harvard University's Center for Middle East Studies, executive director of Columbia University's International Conflict Resolution Program, and as a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. He has also been a senior fellow and deputy director of the Council on Foreign Relations' Center for Preventive Action, director of the European Centre for Common Ground, project director at the International Peace Research Institute of Oslo, president of the Congressional Human Rights Foundation. Mr. Phillips is author of From Bullets to Ballots: Violent Muslim Movements in Transition (Transaction Press, 2008), Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco (Perseus Books, 2005), Unsilencing the Past: Track Two Diplomacy and Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation (Berghahn Books, 2005). He has also authored many policy reports, as well as more than 100 articles in publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, and Foreign Affairs.
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American University of Central Asia
David Lakhdhir, a partner in Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP for over 30 years, is an international lawyer with a practice that spans three continents and a wide range of cross-border M&A, foreign investment, and other international business transactions. He is currently based in the firm's London and New York offices, co-founded its London office, and previously led its office in Tokyo. His clients have included several of the world's largest financial institutions and private equity houses, major U.S., European and Asian multinational enterprises, and several arms of the U.S. government.
Mr. Lakhdhir is also Chair of the board of trustees of the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic; a director of Human Rights Watch, Inc. and Chair of its Policy Committee; and a member of the advisory Council of JUSTICE, a U.K. law reform and human rights organization.
A graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Law School, before entering private practice Mr. Lakhdhir served as a Teaching Fellow in Harvard's Government Department, assisting in courses on "War" and U.S. foreign policy, and spent a year as a Visiting Scholar at the Indian Law Institute in New Delhi, India.
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President
- Trustee and Senior Vice President of the National Committee
Donald S. Rice is a Trustee and Senior Vice President of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP). He has been actively involved in a number of the NCAFP's Track II Projects, including U.S., China and Cross Strait Relations, Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and Central Asia/Caspian Sea Basin Region, requiring travel to the involved regions and participation in numerous roundtables and preparation of reports with policy recommendations. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he co-chaired delegations of banking lawyers to Moscow (on behalf of the Soviet American Banking Law Working Group - SABLAW) and to Mongolia (on behalf of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps - FSVC) assisting in the drafting of banking laws and regulations and the training of bankers. He has retired from the practice of law (formerly a partner at Chadbourne & Parke LLP) and has also been a banker (formerly Vice Chairman of The Bowery Savings Bank). He is a Director of Flowers National Bank, a Member and former Chairman of Yaddo, the artists' colony in Saratoga Springs New York, a Trustee of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a former member of the Advisory Board of the Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy at the JFK School at Harvard University. He holds degrees from Harvard University (AB mcl '61 and LLB/JD cl '64) and New York University (LLM in taxation '65).
Job Titles:
- Director Emeritus
- Director Emeritus, Forum on Asia Pacific Security
Donald S. Zagoria was Senior Vice President of the NCAFP, and served as the Project Director for the Forum on Asia-Pacific Security (FAPS) from its founding until 2020. Under his direction, FAPS initiated and continues to run six major Track II dialogues on regional security issues in the Asia-Pacific.
Prior to joining the NCAFP, Professor Zagoria was a consultant during the Carter Administration to both the National Security Council and the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the State Department. He has also worked for the RAND Corporation and taught courses on United States foreign policy and international relations of East Asia at Hunter College for many years. Professor Zagoria is also actively associated with the East Asian Institute of Columbia University, has been a member of several Columbia University study groups and is actively involved with the Asia Society and the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He has written or edited four books and more than 300 articles on relations among the great powers in the Asia-Pacific region.
Professor Zagoria earned his B.A. at Rutgers University and his M.A. and Ph.D. at Columbia University.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Advisors
- Associate Professor of Political Science at Barnard College
ALEXANDER A. COOLEY is Associate Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University and an Open Society Institute Global Fellow. He is also the co-investigator for the Harriman Institute's project on "US-Georgia Relations after the War." Professor Cooley's research examines how external actors have shaped the sovereignty and political development of the post-Communist states, with a focus on Central Asia and the Caucasus. Professor Cooley has authored numerous academic articles and three books: Logics of Hierarchy (Cornell University Press, 2005; co-winner of the AAASS 2006 Marshall Shulman Prize); Base Politics: Democratic Change and the US Military Overseas (Cornell University Press, 2008); and Contracting States: Sovereign Transfers in International Relations (Princeton University Press, 2009, co-authored with Hendrik Spruyt). As a Fellow with the Open Society Institute in 2009-2010, he is assessing the rise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Central Asia and advising US, EU and NATO policymakers on developing a strategy for engaging the SCO.
In addition to his academic work, Professor Cooley has contributed policy commentaries to the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Current History and Foreign Affairs. He was a Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund in Brussels in 2005 and an International Security Fellow with the Smith Richardson Foundation in 2007. Cooley earned both his M.A. (1995) and Ph.D. (1999) from Columbia University.
Job Titles:
- Editor
- President
- President Emeritus
Held under the name of the National Committee's co-founder, and long-time president, George D. Schwab, this series is designed to generate thoughtful discussion of ongoing foreign policy matters in a balanced, nonpartisan manner from the perspective of the United States. Without limitations in its scope, this series has included briefings on critical cyber and information issues, the Middle East, Russia and U.S.-European relations.
Since its establishment in 1974, the National Committee on American Foreign Policy has demonstrated a commitment to promoting human rights, supporting our allies, and advancing the interests of the United States."
George D. Schwab, co-founded the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in 1974 and served as its president from 1993-2014. In the fall of 2001 the National Committee received a private endowment designed to honor the work of Professor Schwab which led to the creation of the George D. Schwab Foreign Policy Briefings. Speakers at the briefings range from heads of state, foreign ministers, ambassadors, officials of international organizations, and other foreign policy practitioners and experts. They are held throughout the year to give members and guests the opportunity to extend and enhance the understanding of issues that affect the national interests of the United States.
George D. Schwab earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University and taught there until he joined the faculty of the Department of History at the City College of the City University of New York (CUNY) in 1960. He is now professor emeritus of history (City College and the Graduate Center).
George D. Schwab is the author, editor, and translator of numerous books and articles. The Challenge of the Exception: An Introduction to the Political Ideas of Carl Schmitt Between 1921 and 1936 (1970, 2nd ed. 1989) has been translated into Japanese (1980) Italian (1986) and Chinese (2011). Professor Schwab's translation (with Erna Hilfstein) of an introduction to Carl Schmitt's The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes appeared in 1996. A second printing of his translation of an introduction to Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1996. Two printings of his translation of an introduction to Carl Schmitt's Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty were issued by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press in 1985 and 1988 and the University of Chicago Press reissued it with a new foreward in 2005. His most recent publications include "The National Committee on American Foreign Policy's Focus on Russia," The Harriman Economic and Business Review, vol. 1, no. 1 (January 2000), and Carl Schmitt, A Note on a Qualitative Authoritarian Bourgeois Liberal (2000). He coauthored Journey to Belfast and London with William J. Flynn, published by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in February 1999. Dr. Schwab has also edited and contributed chapters to books on the cold war titled United States Foreign Policy at the Crossroads; Eurocommunism: The Ideological and Political-Theoretical Foundations; Ideology and Foreign Policy; and Détente in Historical Perspective.
A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Professor Schwab received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in May 1998. He serves on several committees of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Latvian President's Commission of International Historians. In 2002 he received the Order of the Three Stars, Latvia's highest honor, in a ceremony held in Riga.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Advisors
Dr. GIUSEPPE AMMENDOLA is an international and multilingual consultant and public speaker. He writes on international finance, trade, strategic management, and government. Dr. Ammendola teaches at New York University and has been a visiting professor and has lectured at several Italian graduate schools. He is the author, among others, of From Creditor to Debtor: the US Pursuit of Foreign Capital (New York: Garland, 1994) and the country analysis "Italy" in Michael Curtis (ed.) Western European Politics and Government (New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1st edition 1997 and 2nd edition 2003). He is the editor and main author of The European Union: Multidisciplinary Views (Stony Brook, NY: Forum Italicum, 2008). Dr. Ammendola has been speaker, organizer and/or panelist in hundreds of lectures, roundtables, and TV programs in the US and abroad. He holds doctoral degrees from the United States and Italy, from where he originally arrived as a Fulbright scholar. He is the Joseph Schumpeter Visiting Professor of International Economics at the Universidade Autonoma of Lisbon.
Job Titles:
- Senior Fellow at the Clarke Forum
Dr. JEFFREY D. McCAUSLAND is the Founder and CEO of Diamond6 Leadership and Strategy, LLC. For the past decade Diamond6 has conducted numerous executive leadership development workshops for leaders in public education, US government institutions, non-profit organizations, and corporations across the United States. Participants have included the leadership teams for national education associations and large urban school districts representing hundreds of thousands of students throughout America.
He is also a Visiting Professor of International Security at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He serves as a Senior Fellow at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the United States Naval Academy, and the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York. From 2010 thru 2015 Dr. McCausland was the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Research and Minerva Chairholder at the U.S. Army War College. Prior to these appointments he was a Visiting Professor of International Law and Diplomacy at the Penn State Dickinson School of Law and Graduate School of International Affairs.
Dr. McCausland is a retired Colonel from the US Army and completed his active duty service in the United States Army in 2002 culminating his career as Dean of Academics, United States Army War College. Upon retirement Dr. McCausland accepted the Class of 1961 Chair of Leadership at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland and served there from January 2002 to July 2004. He continues to hold a position as a Senior Fellow at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the Naval Academy.
He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1972 and was commissioned in field artillery. He is also a graduate of the U.S. Army Airborne and Ranger schools as well as the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. He holds both a master's degree and Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.
During his military career Dr. McCausland served in a variety of command and staff positions both in the United States and Europe. This included Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control on the National Security Council Staff in the White House during the Kosovo crisis. He also worked on the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) as a member of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, US Army Staff, the Pentagon. Following this assignment, he assumed command of a field artillery battalion stationed in Europe and deployed his unit to Saudi Arabia for Operations Desert Shield and Storm in 1990 and 1991.
Dr. McCausland has both published and lectured broadly on military affairs, European security issues, the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, as well as leadership topics throughout the United States and over thirty countries. He has been a visiting fellow at the Center for International Affairs, Harvard University; Conflict Studies Research Center, Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst; Stiftung Wissenshaft und Politk, Ebenhausen, Germany; George C. Marshall Center for European Security Studies, Garmisch, Germany; and the International Institute for Strategic Studies,
Dr. McCausland is a senior fellow at the Clarke Forum at Dickinson College and a Senior Associate Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington and an adjunct fellow at the RAND Corporation. He has served on the Board of Advisers to the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in New York, the Hourglass Initiative, and the Dreyfuss Initiative.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director and Senior Fellow With the CSIS Russia
JEFFREY MANKOFF is deputy director and senior fellow with the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program. He is the author of Russian Foreign Policy: The Return of Great Power Politics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009) and a frequent commentator on international security, Russian foreign policy, regional security in the Caucasus and Central Asia, ethnic conflict, and energy security. Before coming to CSIS, he served as an adviser on U.S.-Russia relations at the U.S. Department of State as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. From 2008 to 2010, he was associate director of International Security Studies at Yale University and an adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. In addition to his policy research, Dr. Mankoff teaches courses on international security and Central Asia at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Dr. Mankoff has held academic fellowships at Harvard, Yale, and Moscow State Universities. He holds dual B.A.s in international studies and Russian from the University of Oklahoma and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in diplomatic history from Yale.
A complete list of Jeffrey Mankoff's publications can be viewed online.
JONATHAN CHANIS has worked in energy and finance for over 25 years. Most of this time has been spent trading and investing in the emerging markets and various commodities markets, especially petroleum and natural gas. Currently he is Managing Member of New Tide Asset Management, a proprietary vehicle focused on global and resource investing.
Previously, Dr. Chanis was Managing Director at Tribeca Global Management where he traded energy and emerging market equities, and commodities and currencies. He also was a Senior Trader at Caxton Associates were he traded similar assets. Earlier, Dr. Chanis assisted AIG in building its third party asset management business, and was president of several AIG companies including its Russian investment bank. He also worked on the trading desk of J. Aron & Co., and he was a Vice President at the Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs of the U.S.S.R., and at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Dr. Chanis is a member of the Council on Foreign Relation, and he was an Advisory Board member, and then a member of the Board of Directors of The Energy Forum, for over 20 years. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Graduate School, CUNY, and a BA in Economics from Brooklyn College.
Dr. Chanis has taught graduate and undergraduate courses on, among other subjects, energy security, international politics, comparative politics, political economy, and public policy and financial crises. His courses at Columbia University have been recognized as among the "Top Five Courses" (out of approximately 200 courses) at the School of Public and International Affairs (SIPA) for the last three years in a row, and in 2014 he received SIPA's "Distinguished Teaching Award."
Job Titles:
- Professor of Holocaust Studies at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
Job Titles:
- President of International Consultants, Inc
Dr. SUSAN A. GITELSON is President of International Consultants, Inc. She has been Co-Chair of the Dean's Council of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). She is a National Vice President of the American Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as a member of the Board of the Harry S Truman Research Institute on the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University. She has also been a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. Currently she is a member of the Board of Overseers of the Museum of Jewish Heritage/A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. She has also been on the advisory boards of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the City University Graduate Center and the Center for the Study of the Presidency. In addition, she has supported the Columbia SIPA Gitelson Policy Forum, the Gitelson Peace Publications of the Truman Institute, and many other programs and awards. Her books and articles have been published on four continents. Columbia University awarded her its prestigious Medal for Conspicuous Alumni Service.
Job Titles:
- Program Manager for the Forum on Asia - Pacific Security at the National Committee
- Program Manager, Forum on Asia - Pacific Security
Emily Sparkman is the Program Manager for the Forum on Asia-Pacific Security at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy where she supports the organization's Track I 1/2 and Track II dialogues on security issues in the Asia-Pacific including U.S.-China Relations and alliance relations.
Prior to joining NCAFP, Emily was a Project Manager with the National Bureau of Asian Research in Washington, DC where she oversaw major events for President's Circle and research teams. She received her M.A. in Asian Studies from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and her B.A. in Humanities and Chinese Language from the University of Texas at Austin.
Job Titles:
- Director of Program Development and Special Projects
Erin O'Donnell is the Director of Program Development and Special Projects at the NCAFP. She manages the organization's portfolio on the Middle East and Northern Ireland, focusing on transatlantic peacebuilding and conflict resolution. She also oversees the National Committee's development strategies, including partnership expansion, grant writing, and the coordination of public events, programs, conferences and Track II meetings. Before joining the National Committee, she worked for an international NGO in Israel and Palestine, and studied at the American University of Beirut's Center for Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies. She received her B.A. from New York University in Global Liberal Studies, with minors in Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies and Hebrew & Judaic Studies.
Job Titles:
- Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution 's Center for East Asia Policy Studies
EVANS J.R. REVERE is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Center for East Asia Policy Studies. He is also a senior advisor with the Albright Stonebridge Group, a leading global strategy firm, where he advises U.S. clients with a special focus on Korea, Japan, and China. He writes and speaks frequently on Asia policy issues and is active in Track 1.5 and Track 2 dialogues dealing with U.S. relations with the PRC, the two Koreas, Japan, Taiwan and with East Asian regional security issues. His commentary on Asia appears frequently in major U.S., Korean, and Japanese newspapers and other media outlets. He also draws on his 46 years of experience in Asia to mentor young, aspiring Asia experts.
During 2010-2011 he taught at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. From 2007 to 2010 he was President/CEO of The Korea Society, where he organized the historic 2008 concert in Pyongyang by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 2007, he retired after a long career in government service, most of that as an American diplomat and one of the State Department's top Asia experts. His diplomatic career included service as the Acting Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. During his career, he served in the U.S. Embassies in Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, and Wellington and was the director of the State Department's offices managing relations with Korea and Japan.
He won numerous awards as a U.S. diplomat and helped lead the State Department's highly praised response to the December 2004 tsunami disaster in Indonesia. His last State Department assignment was as Cyrus Vance Fellow in Diplomatic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he directed a task force on U.S.-China relations. He has extensive experience in negotiations with North Korea and served as deputy chief of the U.S. team negotiating with the DPRK and as the U.S. government's primary day-to-day liaison with North Korea.
He is fluent in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and is a graduate of Princeton University, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Grace Kennan Warnecke has had a lifelong association with Russia and the former Soviet Union. She is formerly Chairman of the Board of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, and is outgoing chair of the National Advisory Council, Harriman Institute, at Columbia University, as well as a member of the Advisory Council of the Kennan Institute. She served as country director for Winrock International in Kyiv, Ukraine, from 1999 to 2003. The former president of SOVUS Business Consultants, she was also the founder and project supervisor of the Volkhov International Small Business Incubator in Russia and executive vice president of the Alliance of American and Russian Women.
She was founding executive director of the American-Soviet Youth Orchestra and associate producer of the prize-winning PBS documentary The First Fifty Years: Reflections on U.S.-Soviet Relations. As a professional photographer she was senior editor of A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union. She has served as an election observer in Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Georgia. In 2013 she was named a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.
Grace is the author of Daughter of the Cold War, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2018.
She lives in New York City and Martha's Vineyard.
Hans J. Morgenthau, (1904-1980) was a founder of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in 1974 and its first chairman. As he defined and illuminated the national interests of the United States from the perspective of political realism, he became a seminal theorist of international relations. Accordingly, the National Committee's Hans J. Morgenthau Award is presented in his memory to individuals whose intellectual and practical contributions to American foreign policy have been judged to be so exemplary in the tradition of Professor Morgenthau that they merit the singular award.
Born and educated in Germany, he fled his country at the age of 33 and settled permanently in the United States where he was appointed to prestigious university positions, including chairs named for the Albert A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and Modern History at the University of New York (CUNY). In addition to teaching at CUNY's Graduate Center, he served as a visiting professor at Harvard, Columbia, Northwestern, the University of California, and Yale. Professor Morgenthau was an adviser to both the U.S. State Department and the Defense Department.
His acclaimed work in the fields of international relations and foreign affairs includes Politics Among Nations; Science: Servant or Master?; A New Foreign Policy for the United States; Politics in the Twentieth Century; and, In Defense of the National Interest.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Economics, Emeritus
Professor HENRY ROSOVSKY, professor of Economics, Emeritus, is the author of many articles and books, including Capital Formation in Japan(1961), Quantitative Japanese Economic History (1961), Japanese Economic Growth (with K. Ohkawa, 1973) and The University: An Owner's Manual (1990). He also edited Industrialization in Two Systems (1961) Discord in the Pacific (1972), Asia's New Giant: How the Japanese Economy Works (with H. Patrick, 1976), Favorites of Fortune (with P. Higonnet and D. Landes, 1991) and The Political Economy of Japan: Cultural and Social Dynamics (with Shumpei Kumon, 1992).
Born in the Free City of Danzig in 1927, Professor Rosovsky received his A.B degree in 1949 from the College of William and Mary and his Ph.D. degree from Harvard in 1959.He taught economics, history and Japanese and Korean studies at the University of California at Berkeley until 1965. Thereafter, his Harvard service has been lifelong, with the most important of his numerous positions including Professor of Economics (1965-1996), Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (1973-1991), and, briefly in both 1984 and 1987, Acting President of Harvard. Professor Rosovsky has received many achievement awards and honorary degrees and has been a member of numerous professional associations, advisory boards and corporate boards. He has taught as a visiting professor in Japan and Israel and has worked variously as a consultant with the United States government, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and UNESCO.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board
- Member of the Officers & Trustees Team
- Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Committee
Jeffrey R. Shafer is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. He is also a Member of the Management Board of S&P Global Ratings.
Karl Eikenberry is a former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and Lieutenant General, U.S. Army (retired). He is a senior advisor to the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Defense on its defense and military transformation plan. He is also a faculty member of Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
From 2011-2019 he was the Director of the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University. He was also an affiliate with the Stanford University Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies' Center for International Security and Cooperation; Center for Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law; and The Europe Center.
Prior to his arrival at Stanford, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2009 until 2011. Before appointment as Chief of Mission in Kabul, Ambassador Eikenberry had a thirty-five year career in the United States Army, retiring with the rank of lieutenant general. His military operational posts included as commander and staff officer with mechanized, light, airborne, and ranger infantry units in the continental U.S., Hawaii, Korea, Italy, and as the Commander of the American-led Coalition forces in Afghanistan. He held various policy and political-military positions, including Deputy Chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Military Committee in Brussels, Belgium; Director for Strategic Planning and Policy for U.S. Pacific Command at Camp Smith, Hawaii; U.S. Security Coordinator and Chief of the Office of Military Cooperation in Kabul, Afghanistan; Assistant Army and later Defense Attaché at the United States Embassy in Beijing, China; Senior Country Director for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and Deputy Director for Strategy, Plans, and Policy on the Army Staff.
He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, has earned master's degrees from Harvard University in East Asian Studies and Stanford University in Political Science, and was a National Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Ambassador Eikenberry earned an Interpreter's Certificate in Mandarin Chinese from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office while studying at the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence Chinese Language School in Hong Kong and has an Advanced Degree in Chinese History from Nanjing University in the People's Republic of China.
His military awards include the Defense Distinguished and Superior Service Medals, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Ranger Tab, Combat and Expert Infantryman Badges, and master parachutist wings. He has received the Department of State Distinguished, Superior, and Meritorious Honor Awards, Director of Central Intelligence Award, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award. He is also the recipient of the George F. Kennan Award for Distinguished Public Service and Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Centennial Medal. Ambassador Eikenberry has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Degree from North Carolina State University, an Honorary Doctorate of Laws Degree from Ball State University, and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Degree from the University of San Francisco.
His foreign and international decorations include the Canadian Meritorious Service Cross, French Legion of Honor, Afghanistan's Ghazi Amir Amanullah Khan and Akbar Khan Medals, and the NATO Meritorious Service Medal.
He belongs to the boards of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva, The Asia Foundation, American Councils for International Education, Asia Society of Northern California, National Bureau of Asian Research, and National Committee on American Foreign Policy; is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Liechtenstein Institute for Self-Determination, Princeton University; serves on the United States Institute of Peace's Flag Officer Advisory Group; and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and American Academy of Diplomacy. He was previously the President of the Foreign Area Officers Association and a board member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
His articles and essays on U.S. and international security issues have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, The American Interest, American Foreign Policy Interests, Lawfare, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Lawfare, Foreign Policy, Survival, Dædalus, The Financial Times, Parameters, and Military Review.
Job Titles:
- Vice Chairman of the Board
With over thirty years of experience in foreign policy, former Ambassador Nancy Soderberg has served in the White House, the United Nations, the United States Senate and on four presidential campaigns. She also has senior level experience in the nonprofit world. She has a deep understanding of policy-making and negotiations at the highest levels of government and the United Nations. She has promoted democracy and conflict resolution worldwide.
Ambassador Soderberg is President and CEO of Soderberg Global Solutions, an international consulting firm. She is also the Director of the Public Service Leadership Program at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. She is on the Board of Advisors to the President of the Naval Postgraduate School and Naval War College. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2011, President Barack Obama appointed her as Chair of the Public Interest Declassification Board, an advisory committee established by Congress to promote public access to U.S. national security decisions, a position she held through 2014. She served on the Board of the Jacksonville Port Authority 2013 to 2015.
From 2009 to 2013, Ambassador Soderberg served as President of Connect U.S. Fund, a Washington, D.C. based foundation that promotes responsible global engagement. From 2001 to 2005, she ran the New York office of the International Crisis Group as Vice President. In that capacity, she advocated conflict prevention at the United Nations and other multilateral institutions. In 1997, President Bill Clinton appointed her to serve as Alternate Representative to the United Nations as a Presidential Appointee, with the rank of Ambassador. Her responsibilities included representing the United States at the Security Council on a wide range of current national security issues, including conflict resolution, promotion of democracy abroad, trade policy, and arms control. Ambassador Soderberg represented the United States in negotiations at the Security Council, participated in missions to key conflict areas, and promoted U.S. national security policy at the United Nations and with the leadership of other nations.
From 1993 to 97, she served as the third ranking official of the National Security Council at the White House, as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, following her role as Staff Director of the National Security Council. She was responsible for day-to-day crisis management, briefing the President, developing U.S. national security policy at the highest levels of government, and handling issues regarding the press and Congress. She also served as President of the Sister Cities Program of the City of New York from 2002 to 2006.
Prior to serving at the White House, Soderberg served as the Foreign Policy Director for the Clinton/Gore 1992 Campaign, as well as the Transition Team, and worked as the Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to Senator Edward M. Kennedy. She has been active in national Democratic politics since the early 1980's, serving in a variety of capacities in national president campaigns since 1984.
Ambassador Soderberg publishes and speaks regularly on national security policy. Her second book, The Prosperity Agenda: What the World Wants from America-and What We Need in Return, written with Brian Katulis, was published in July 2008. It argues for American leadership in tackling the world's challenges in exchange for the world assisting us with our threat. Her 2005 book, The Superpower Myth: The Use and Misuse of American Might, analyzes the use of force and diplomacy over the last decade. She is a regular commentator on national and international television and radio, having appeared on NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, BBC, Fox, National Public Radio, the Lehrer News Hour, CNN Crossfire, and The Daily Show. She speaks fluent French. She earned a Masters of Science Degree from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Vanderbilt University.
Susan M. Elliott, Ambassador (ret.) is an accomplished diplomat with an earned doctorate from Indiana University. During her 27-year diplomatic career, Ambassador Elliott held a variety of leadership positions at the U.S. Department of State. She became President and CEO of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in August 2018.
From 2015 to 2017, Ambassador Elliott served as the Civilian Deputy and Foreign Policy Advisor to the Commander of the United States European Command. Ambassador Elliott was the U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan from 2012 to 2015. Prior to her Ambassadorial appointment, she served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, U.S. Department of State.
Ambassador Elliott served on the faculties of Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia before joining the U.S. Department of State in March 1990. During her Foreign Service career, Ambassador Elliott worked in a variety of overseas and Washington-based assignments. Her previous overseas assignments include Minister Counselor for Political Affairs in Moscow, Russia; Principal Officer in Belfast, Northern Ireland; Deputy Economic Counselor and Visa Section Chief in Athens, Greece. Other overseas assignments include Moscow, Russia and Lima, Peru.
Ambassador Elliott worked on the staff of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a Deputy Executive Secretary and Director of the Executive Secretariat Staff. Earlier in her career she reported on conflicts in the countries of the former Soviet Union when she worked in the Office of the Coordinator for Regional Conflicts in the New Independent States.
Ambassador Thomas Pickering retired from the State Department as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. In a diplomatic career with service in each of the major continents, Ambassador Pickering reached the rank of Career Ambassador, the highest in the U.S. Foreign Service. He served as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation, India, Israel, El Salvador; Nigeria, and Jordan. He also was the U.S. Ambassador and Representative to the United Nations in New York, where he led the U.S. effort to build a coalition in the UN Security Council during and after the first Gulf War. He has held additional positions in Tanzania, Geneva, and Washington, including as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Oceans, Environmental and Scientific Affairs and as Executive Secretary of the Department and Special Assistant to Secretaries of State William P. Rogers and Henry A. Kissinger.
Ambassador Pickering was awarded the Distinguished Presidential Award in 1983 and 1986, and the Distinguished Service Award, the U.S. Department of State's highest honor, in 1996. He also holds the rank of Career Ambassador, the highest in the U.S. Foreign Service. Ambassador Pickering was presented with the Hans J. Morgenthau Award for Distinguished Public Service from the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in 1993.
After retiring from the State Department in 2000, Ambassador Pickering joined The Boeing Company as Senior Vice President International Relations and member of the Executive Council, where he was responsible for the Company's relations with foreign governments and the globalization of Boeing. Ambassador Pickering holds a B.A. from Bowdoin College, an M.A.L.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a second M.A. from the University of Melbourne in Australia, where he studied under a Fulbright Scholarship. He speaks French, Spanish, and Swahili fluently and also is proficient in Arabic, Hebrew and Russian.
Jacqueline Adams launched a second career as a communications strategist after more than two decades as an Emmy Award winning CBS News correspondent. A natural "connector," she has the unique ability to hear clients' strategic concerns and find creative solutions, drawing upon her wealth of contacts and experiences in media, business, academic and civic circles.
Through her boutique consulting firm, J Adams: Strategic Communications, LLC, she counsels a variety of corporate and non-profit clients. She has had multi-year engagements with the global communications strategy firm then known as Burson-Marsteller, and with the Ford Foundation. She serves as a senior advisor to the new payment platform for publishers, NICKLPass and she is a co-founder of the training program for rising star managers of color, The Diverse Future. In 2020, she launched a bi-monthly column, #TeamUp, in The Christian Science Monitor, following the publication of the book she co-authored, "A Blessing: Women of Color Teaming Up to Lead, Empower and Thrive." She currently writes the Climate Stories blog for the Harvard Business School Business and the Environment Initiative.
At CBS News, Ms. Adams covered the groundbreaking campaigns of Jesse Jackson for President and Geraldine Ferraro for Vice President before spending five years as a White House correspondent during the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. In the 1990s, she was a prolific contributor to the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and CBS News Sunday Morning. She won a News and Documentary Emmy Award for the 48 Hours broadcast, "The Search for Matthew."
A graduate of Harvard Business School, Ms. Adams deliberately saves time for a number of non-profit activities in the arts, education and foreign policy sectors. Currently, she serves on the Board of Directors of the Harvard Business School Club of New York and was among the alumnae profiled during the school's 50 th anniversary celebrations of women and African-American students . She recently retired as communications officer of the Harvard Business School African-American Alumni Association (HBSAAA) after 20 years of service.
She has served on the boards of NYC Global Partners during the Bloomberg administration and the Off-the-Record Lecture Series, the oldest, largest women's foreign policy lecture series in the United States. For a decade, Ms. Adams co-led HBSAAA alumni in a mentoring program with 200+ 7th graders at KIPP Academy, the highest performing middle school in the Bronx and also served on the Board of the KIPP Charter Schools in NYC. She founded the Frederick Douglass Council of the New-York Historical Society while a member of its major donor group, the Chairman's Council. Twice, she has traveled to the Venice Biennale, the international arts festival, as a member of the Studio Museum in Harlem's Global Council.
Ms. Adams is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Advisory Committee of the United States Institute of Peace, and the Advisory Council of the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream. She was recently named to the board of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy She is a patron of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and is in the seventh year of a planned decade-long study of classical composers at the Juilliard School of Music's Extension Division.
John Connorton practiced law at Hawkins, Delafield and Wood, LLP for 43 years. Specializing in the law of public finance and municipal bonds, he participated in a wide range of capital infrastructure project financings throughout the United States. Representative bond counsel clients included major power, energy, transportation, industrial development, environmental and housing public authorities and agencies, as well as various states and municipalities. Other representative clients included major investment banking firms and banks serving as underwriters for various public finance projects. He has served as special counsel to a number of large universities and corporations, including those doing business in Northern Ireland. He served as a member of the Firm's Management Committee for over 16 years.
He served as an Assistant Counsel to the Governor of the State of New York, during which time he participated in drafting and negotiating legislation rescuing the Urban Development Corporation from insolvency; authorizing the creation of the Municipal Assistance Corporation for The City of New York; authorizing the creation of Emergency Financial Control Boards for the cities of New York and Yonkers; and authorizing the creation of the Public Authorities Control Board.
As a Naval Officer, he deployed twice to Vietnam on board USS Vancouver LPD-2. He has long been also involved in numerous charitable, cultural, and civic activities, including his involvement as a member of the Boards of the Alliance for Downtown, the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association and the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. He has also served as a Partner in the Partnership for the City of New York and a member of the Board of Directors of the Academy of Political Science, the Citizens Union, the Flax Trust, the New York City Health & Hospitals Corporation, the College of Mount St. Vincent and the Institute for Mediation and Conflict Resolution, and as a member of the New York State Health Financing Council, the New York State Temporary Commission on State and Local Fiscal Policies, the New York State Hazardous Waste Disposal Advisory Committee and the New York State Court Facilities Task Force. He has also served as the Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Chairman of the Committee on International Arms Control and Security Affairs of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director of the Forum
- Deputy Director, Forum on Asia - Pacific Security
Juliet Lee is the Deputy Director of the Forum on Asia-Pacific Security (FAPS) at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP), where she manages the organization's Track 1.5/2 conferences, emerging leaders' programs, and grants on security issues in the Asia Pacific, namely U.S.-China relations, cross-Taiwan Strait relations, North Korea, and alliance management. She is also a Pacific Forum Young Leader, Korea Society Kim Koo Foundation Fellow (2018 cohort), and a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Juliet earned her M.A. in International Relations from New York University, where she focused her
research on cross-Strait relations. She also earned her B.A. in International Studies with minors in French and Chinese from the University of Richmond.
Kimberly Kriger brings more than 20 years of experience advising C-suites and boards of directors of U.S. and multinational companies and institutions facing complex crises and issues related to capital markets, reputation management, sustainable value creation, stakeholder engagement, commercial disputes, M&A, corporate governance and emerging regulatory and public policy concerns - many of which are greater challenges than ever before.
Kimberly was a Partner at Kekst CNC, where in addition to advancing her clients' interests and goals, with sophisticated communications strategies, she helped build new capabilities and offerings for the firm, including in its restructuring, ESG and business transformation practices. As a Partner at Dentons Global Advisors, she leveraged her experience while helping the firm integrate sustainability and ESG strategy into its legal practice offerings.
Job Titles:
- Verizon 's Vice President for National Security Policy
Marcus Sachs is Verizon's Vice President for National Security Policy, and the Vice Chair of the Communications Sector Coordinating Council. He serves on several other public/private working groups in Washington and was a member of the CSIS Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency. From 2003 to 2010 he volunteered as the Director of the SANS Internet Storm Center. He retired from the U.S. Army in 2001 following a 20 year career and was subsequently appointed by the President to serve in the White House Office of Cyberspace Security in 2002-2003. He holds degrees in Civil Engineering, Computer Science, and Science and Technology Commercialization, and is
currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Public Policy at George Mason University. He authored and teaches a three-day course in Critical Infrastructure Protection at the SANS Institute and is a licensed Professional Engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Job Titles:
- Founder and Managing Director of Peridot Asia Advisors
MARY WADSWORTH DARBY is Founder and Managing Director of Peridot Asia Advisors. She has developed a unique market expertise through her more than 25 years living and working in China and Asia in the financial services industry and with Fortune 100 companies. She has developed strategic business plans for many companies, advised on market opening strategies and negotiated numerous significant and complex transactions with her Chinese counterparts. She was the first U.S. businesswoman to travel to China after the historic Nixon-Kissinger opening.
Before founding Peridot, Mary worked for Morgan Stanley in Firm Management in New York City and for Morgan Stanley Investment Management in Hong Kong. She was also Executive Director of the America-China Society, an organization devoted to the promotion of relations between the U.S. and China chaired by Henry A. Kissinger and the late Cyrus R. Vance. Mary Darby is also a Senior Research Scholar, Jerome A. Chazen Institute, Columbia Business School.
Matthew Nimetz is a former Advisory Director at General Atlantic LLC. He joined the firm in January 2000 as Chief Operating Officer and is based in New York City. Mr. Nimetz was a Partner and Chairman at Partner, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York City, where he concentrated on corporate and international law from December 1980 through January 2000. Prior to December 1980, he served as an Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science, and Technology from February through December 1980 and as a Counselor of the Department of State from 1977 to 1980. In those capacities, Mr. Nimetz supervised United States security assistance programs and the Department's international scientific and technological programs, including scientific and technical cooperation, nuclear nonproliferation issues, environmental matters, and international communications activities of the United States government.
He also supervised, among other things, United States policy on the Eastern Mediterranean (Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus) and relationships with Eastern European countries. From March 1994 through September 1995, Mr. Nimetz served as the President Clinton's Special Envoy in the mediation of a dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Mr. Nimetz previously practiced law as an Associate and Partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett between 1969 and 1977.
He served in 1974 as an Executive Director at NY Governor-elect Hugh Carey's transition. Mr. Nimetz's previous federal government positions include service as a Staff Assistant to President Lyndon Johnson from July 1967 to January 1969 and as a Law Clerk to Justice John M. Harlan of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1965 to 1967. In addition, he served as a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from 1975 to 1977. Mr. Nimetz serves as a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Member and former chair of the Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe, a Trustee of Central European University, and a Trustee of Committee for Economic Development. Mr. Nimetz served as the President at Harvard Law Review. He served previously as the Founding Chairman of World Resources Institute, as a Director of The Nature Conservancy of New York, a Trustee of Williams College, Chair of the Advisory Committee of the Levin Institute of the State University of New York, and a Director of The Revson Foundation and The Nature Conservancy of New York. Mr. Nimetz also served as the Chairman of the United Nations Development Corporation, as an Appointee of Mayors Koch and Dinkins from 1986 to 1994.
Mr. Nimetz has done a LL.B. from Harvard Law School in 1965, an M.A. from Balliol College, Oxford University in 1962 where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a B.A. from Williams College in 1960.
Professor MICHAEL RYWKIN, Central Asia Project Director. National Committee on American Foreign Policy, Professor Emeritus CCNY of CUNY and President Emeritus, Association for the Study of Nationalities. He is the author of four books, one of which one was translated into Turkish and another into Farsi. He also published over fifty articles focused on Russian and Central Asian studies, and presented papers at numerous conferences in the USA, Canada, "old" and "new" Europe, as well as in Russia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Professor Rywkin studied in Poland, Uzbekistan, France, and United States, and received his Ph.D. at Columbia University. He is fluent in Russian, Polish, and French.
Nia Williams is the Program Assistant at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, where she helps support the organization's public events, programs, conferences, and Track I ½ and Track II dialogues. Before joining the National Committee, she gained experience in event planning and research working for a nonprofit organization and a think tank. She earned her B.A. in International Politics and Economics from Middlebury College.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- CEO of the Atlantic
- Contributor for CBS News
Nicholas Thompson is the CEO of The Atlantic, a position he has held since February 2021. He was previously the editor-in-chief of WIRED. Under his leadership, WIRED broke massive, and much-lauded, stories about Facebook, cyber-warfare, the Robert Mueller investigation, and numerous other topics. During Thompson's tenure, Wired's digital subscriptions climbed almost 300 percent. The magazine won a National Magazine Award for design and photography and been named a finalist for General Excellence. Wired was also named one of Ad Age's A-List digital publishers and won numerous honors from The Webby Awards, The Shorty Awards, and The Society of Publication Designers. Thompson's most recent story about Facebook was a finalist for a Loeb Award. Upon leaving, he wrote a note to staff about his experience reading and running the magazine.
Mr. Thompson previously served as the editor of newyorker.com from 2012 to 2017, where he oversaw and managed the magazine's fast-growing Web Site. During that time, the number of monthly readers increased seven-fold. He also led the redesign and replatforming of the site, the launch of the New Yorker Today app, and the introduction of a metered paywall. The work he led is summarized in this article: "How the New Yorker grew its digital audience by focusing on quality." Previously, he was a senior editor at The New Yorker where he edited stories about Earl Sweatshirt, Mullah Omar, Barack Obama's foreign policy, and many other topics.
Mr. Thompson is also a contributor for CBS News, where he discusses technology on CBS This Morning and the CBS Evening News. He is also a co-founder of The Atavist, a software company and National Magazine Award-winning digital publication that was acquired by WordPress in 2018. His book, "The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War," was published in 2009 and hailed as "brilliant" by The Washington Post. The Washington Times said it "may be the most important political biography in recent memory."
He has also been a senior editor at WIRED, a senior editor at Legal Affairs and an editor at the Washington Monthly. Stories that he has edited and assigned have won many major awards and been made into films-including Ben Affleck's Argo. Prior to becoming a journalist, Mr. Thompson released three albums of acoustic guitar music, worked at Penguin Computing, and co-wrote a book about comparative economic development in West Africa and Southeast Asia. He is an avid runner, and in 2019 he finished the Chicago Marathon with a time of 2:29. In 2020, he set the American record for men 45+ in the 50k race.
Mr. Thompson has written about politics, technology, and the law for numerous publications, and was for many years a senior fellow in the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. One favorite piece was this one on his long friendship with Svetlana Stalin. He also wrote the introduction to "The Best Magazine Writing of 2017," published by Columbia University Press. He has appeared multiple times on every major cable and broadcast news network. He has given public speeches on numerous topics including the most important issues facing the tech industry, the future of narrative journalism, the way computers are changing our minds, the role of technology in political revolutions, and the way that Silicon Valley thinks about circular economics. He has testified in front of the Mexican Senate about fake news and moderated, or spoken at, numerous events including those hosted by WIRED, The New Yorker, the World Economic Forum, CES, Google Zeitgeist, Google I/O, Techonomy, The 92nd Street Y, Aspen Ideas, Aspen Ideas Abu Dhabi, West Point, Columbia Journalism School, The New York Public Library, and The Council on Foreign Relations. Thompson currently serves on the boards of The Stanford Daily and the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. He was a United States Truman Scholar and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with honors from Stanford University where he earned a double major in Earth Systems and Political Science, while also completing a third degree in Economics. At Stanford, he cofounded a bipartisan publication for thought and debate called The Thinker and supported it by selling ads.
Nicholas Thompson is represented by the Lavin Agency and Helen Shabason. To inquire about speaking engagements, please visit Mr. Thompson's speaker page. Mr. Thompson can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, where he was named the fourth most influential person of 2018.
Job Titles:
- Business and Marketing Executive
ORLANDO CAMARGO is a business and marketing executive with over 25 years of global experience in leading and working with multinational companies, governments and organizations.
He received his Master's Degree in Economics and Business from the University of Tsukuba in Japan and upon graduation was the first non-Japanese to be hired as a civil service researcher at a prestigious Science and Technology Agency's National Institute for Science and Technology (NISTEP) of Japan. He has written about the economics of R&D and worked as a visiting scholar at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and was an Executive in Residence at Temple University MBA program. Orlando has worked with renowned management consultant James C. Abegglen assisting companies in a variety of industries with market entry research and global strategy development. He concentrated on marketing and communications while helping establish the Fleishman Hillard Japan office and developed marketing programs for companies and organizations primarily in finance, technology and manufacturing.
From May 2000 Orlando was Vice President and Director of Communications for Japan and Japan business related activities of Goldman Sachs Inc. He had oversight for media relations, marketing & branding and internal communications for the Tokyo office of 1,300 employees and for Goldman Sachs related business in Japan, reporting jointly to the Tokyo office co-presidents and the head of Asian Communications in Hong Kong. He worked closely with business managers in investment banking, trading, asset management, legal, operations and human capital management to integrate marketing communications programs aligned to overall global and local business strategy. From 2006 Orlando was President and Representative Director of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide Japan. He was the primary driving force in establishing and growing the Japan office of one of the world's leading Public Relations consultancies, focusing on developing social media strategies, and integrated marketing and reputation management programs for organizations, companies, brands and government organizations.
Orlando completed his undergraduate degree from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)-Eisenhower College. He is a member of the Nippon Club, the Museum of the City of New York and an advisor to the Fresh Air Fund. Orlando grew up in New York City and lives in Harlem.
Job Titles:
- Executive Vice President
- Treasurer
- Executive Vice President and Treasurer of the National Committee
Richard R. Howe is Executive Vice President and Treasurer of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP).
Mr. Howe is a lawyer with the firm of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York, specializing in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and financial institutions. His practice has included many international transactions in which he has represented clients in negotiations with foreign governments, including Liberia, Guinea, Turkey, Jordan, Haiti, China, Australia and Indonesia, as well as other parties.
Mr. Howe was Chair of the New York State Bar Association Business Law Section in 1992-1993, when he was a co-founder of the Soviet-American Banking Law Working Group (SABLAW) which presented a conference on Banking in a Market Economy in Moscow in May 1992. SABLAW wrote a book on the basics of banking that was translated into Russian, printed by the Russian Central Bank and distributed to law and business schools in Russia. In 1993, Mr. Howe participated in a similar conference in Mongolia.
Mr. Howe was a participant in the NCAFP's trips to Kazakhstan in 2005 and 2007 as part of its Central Asia/Caspian Sea Basin Project. He has also participated in NCAFP projects involving U.S.-China relations, Cross-Strait relations, the Korean peninsula and U.S.-Japan relations.
In addition to continuing to practice law, Mr. Howe serves on Bar Association committees dealing with legal opinions, is President and a director of Peoples' Symphony Concerts of New York City and is a member of The Corporation of Yaddo of Saratoga Springs, New York.
Mr. Howe is a graduate of Yale University (B.A., magna cum laude, 1964) and Harvard Law School (J.D., magna cum laude, 1967).
Job Titles:
- Chief of Staff for Former Treasury Secretary
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director, Forum on Asia - Pacific Security
- Project Director of the Forum on Asia - Pacific Security
Susan A. Thornton is Project Director of the Forum on Asia-Pacific Security at the NCAFP, Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School and Senior Fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center. In 2018, she retired from the State Department after a 28-year diplomatic career focused primarily on East and Central Asia. In leadership roles in Washington, Thornton worked on China and Korea policy, including stabilizing relations with Taiwan, the U.S.-China Cyber Agreement, the Paris Climate Accord and led a successful negotiation in Pyongyang for monitoring of the Agreed Framework on denuclearization.
In her 18 years of overseas postings in Central Asia, Russia, the Caucasus and China, Thornton's leadership furthered U.S. interests and influence and maintained programs and mission morale in a host of difficult operating environments. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, she was among the first State Department Fascell Fellows and served from 1989-90 at the U.S. Consulate in Leningrad. She was also a researcher at the Foreign Policy Institute from 1987-91. Thornton holds degrees from the National Defense University's Eisenhower School, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and Bowdoin College. She speaks Russian, Mandarin Chinese and French, is a member of numerous professional associations and is on the Board of Trustees for the Eurasia Foundation.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Value Trust Capital LLC
Thomas Hexner is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Value Trust Capital LLC, a New York based investment firm. He also serves as President of the Hexner Foundation. Mr. Hexner was formerly the President of Bernstein Investment Research and Management where he was responsible for their global private client business for over 15 years.
Mr. Hexner has been involved with a variety of organizations and currently serves on the Board of Regents of Georgetown University. He spent 12 years on the Board of Trustees of The Browning School in Manhattan, most recently as Treasurer. His family foundation supports several educational initiatives with a focus on promoting awareness of and fostering communication on global issues.
For his decisive leadership and daring diplomacy in spurring two cease-fires and promoting the peace process in Northern Ireland, Flynn received the National Committee's inaugural Initiative for Peace Award in 1997 (renamed the William J. Flynn Initiative for Peace Award in 2001). Flynn is also chairman emeritus of Mutual of America, chairman of the International Center for Religion & Diplomacy and president of Flax Trust America. He is a member of the board of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, the Ireland America Economic Advisory Board, and the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation. He has also served as chairman of the Advisory Committee to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, president of the board of the New York Foundling Hospital, and member of the boards of Boston University and Fordham University, and the U.S. Army War College. William J. Flynn is the recipient of Brandeis University's Distinguished Community Services Award and the Ubi Caritas Deus Ibi Award-the highest honor of Catholic Charities. In the spring of 1995 Mr. Flynn received an Honorary Doctorate of Law degree from the College of Mount Saint Vincent and an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from the College of New Rochelle. In the fall of 1995 Mr. Flynn received the Sisters of Saint Dominic's Veritas Award, the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Ireland United States Council, and the Insurance Federation of New York's Free Enterprise Award. In the fall of 1996, he received Honorary Doctorates in Humane Letters from College Misericordia and Sacred Heart University. In early 1998 Mr. Flynn received the Club of Champions Gold Medal Award from the Catholic Youth Organization, and in the spring of that year, he received an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. In November of 1999, Mr. Flynn was selected by Irish America Magazine as one of The Greatest Irish-Americans of the Century. Mr. Flynn was among the honorees at the December 1999 Peace Links gala in Washington, DC for his help to broker peace in Ireland. Early in 2001 Mr. Flynn received The Outstanding Civilian Service Medal from the Department of the Army for extraordinary service as an expert consultant on the U.S. Army War College Board of Visitors. In March of 2003 Mr. Flynn was awarded the John F. Kennedy National Achievement Award by the St. Patrick's Committee of Holyoke, Massachusetts. In making the announcement, the President of the St. Patrick's Committee said, "William Flynn, by far, surpasses any criteria that may be set as a measurement for success in a person's professional or personal life. Mr. Flynn has succeeded in business while demonstrating a continued commitment to human rights issues, not just in Ireland, but around the world." In September 2005 the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding presented Mr. Flynn with a Special Peacemaker in Action Award "for a lifetime devoted to conflict resolution." William J. Flynn is the coauthor (with George D. Schwab) of Journey to Belfast and London, which was published by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in February 1999.