Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Today

Valerie Hudson

Valerie M. Hudson is a University Distinguished Professor and Holder of the George H.W. Bush Chair in the Department of International Affairs at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, where she directs the Program on Women, Peace, and Security.  In 2009, Foreign Policy Magazine named her one of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers."  She is co-author of Sex and World Peace, Bare Branches, The Hillary Doctrine, and The First Political Order.

Discussion: The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide

Past Speakers

Dr. Toshiaki Hiromitsu

Dr. Hiromitsu is the Minister (Finance) at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C., a post he assumed in May 2021. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance (MoF).

Read more »

Prior to his present position, Dr. Hiromitsu was Director of Policy and Research, Minister’s Secretariat, MoF, where he was in charge of overall planning and coordination of fiscal, monetary and growth policy in Japan. Dr. Hiromitsu has nearly 30 years of professional experience since he joined MoF in 1992. During his recent career, Dr. Hiromitsu was responsible for issues including long-term projection of Japan’s fiscal policy, fiscal consolidation packages, budget of social security expenditures, economic package for COVID-19, government loans to local governments and medical institutions, and supervision of government-affiliated financial institutions. His experience includes services at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. (2000-2003), the Prime Minister’s Office (2011-2013, Noda and Abe Cabinet), and the Reconstruction Agency for the Great East Japan Earthquake (2013-2015).
Dr. Hiromitsu is also active as an academic scholar. After earning B.A. in liberal arts from the University of Tokyo, he obtained M.Phil. in economics from University of Oxford and Ph.D. in economics from Hitotsubashi University. His fields of studies are macroeconomics, finance, experimental economics, health economics, ethics and political philosophy. His recent interest is intergenerational ethics, which is aimed at solving long-term policy issues such as climate change and fiscal consolidation. The study, which adopts ethics, game theory, and experimental economics, will be published soon in his book as Philosophy and Economics of Intergenerational Issues.

General Charles F. Wald, U.S. Air Force (Retired)

General Charles F. Wald (USAF, Ret.) is the Chief Executive Officer of RG5 LLC (RG) and its subsidiaries, Robbins-Gioia, LLC and PM Telco, LLC. He is responsible for overseeing all of RG’s business development and operations. Read more »

 

Prior to joining RG, General Wald was the President of Jones Group Middle East (JGME), responsible for overseeing all of JGME’s business development and operations in the region. General Wald is a subject matter specialist in best commercial business practices, doctrine and strategy, military procurement and sustainment, counterterrorism, technology innovation and international energy security policy. An acknowledged leader on global military strategy and development, General Wald is sought after to deliver speeches at private industry events, national policy institutions as well as colleges and universities. He routinely conducts radio and television interviews on topics including supply chain, defense budget planning, cost reduction, foreign military sales, and weapons systems such as the Joint Strike Fighter Program.

General Wald was named by the Defense News “as one of the 100 Most Influential People” listing for U.S. Defense and a Top 100 Airpower Advocate. He has had Op-Eds published in many leading periodicals to include the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and New York Times. He has testified before the United States Congress on numerous occasions. General Wald retired from the U.S. Air Force as a four-star general after serving over 35 years in the U.S. military as a command pilot with more than 3,600 flying hours and 430 combat hours. In his last position, he served as deputy commander of U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) from 2002 until his retirement from the U.S. Air Force in July 2006. In that role he was responsible for U.S. forces operating across 92 countries in Europe, Africa, Russia, parts of Asia, the Middle East, and most of the Atlantic Ocean. During his command, he developed the European Command’s first ever Strategic Plan that included energy assurance and sustainment for the EUCOM Area of Responsibility (AOR).

General Wald earned his commission through the Air Force ROTC program in 1970. He was an All-American wide receiver and played on two National Championship football teams. After graduation he was drafted into the National Football League by the Atlanta Falcons. He has combat time as a Forward Air Controller in Vietnam and as an F-16 pilot flying over Bosnia and Iraq. He was the Chief of the U.S. Air Force Combat Terrorism Center, was selected as the USAF’s first Support Group Commander, commanded a Combat Operations Group, and was the special assistant to the Air Force Chief of Staff for the Quadrennial Defense Review. He was the Director of Strategic Planning and Policy at Headquarters U.S. Air Force, served on the Joint Staff as the Vice Director for Strategic Plans and Policy and was the U.S. Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for the Air and Space Operations in the Pentagon.

General Wald commanded the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano Air Base, Italy, where on August 30, 1995, he led one of the initial strike packages for NATO in the Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict. From 1999 – 2001, he commanded the 9th Air Force and U.S. Central Command Air Forces where he was responsible for all USAF Combat Forces East of the Mississippi and in the Middle East. In September 2001, as the Supported Commander, General Wald led the development of the coalition response and air campaign against the Taliban in Operation Enduring Freedom, including the idea of embedding tactical air control parties in coalition ground special operations forces. The operation led to the initial defeat of Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

Prior to joining Jones Group Middle East, General Wald served as Vice Chairman, Federal Practice Senior Advisor, Deloitte Services, LP. He provided senior leadership in strategy and relationships with the U.S. Department of Defense as well as Deloitte’s Commercial Aerospace and Defense Clients globally. As a Managing Director for Deloitte’s Defense Sector practice, General Wald managed the single largest account in the U.S. firm with annual revenue of over $300 million. Prior to being recruited to join Deloitte as a Director in 2009 and a “Brand Transformation Leader”, General Wald served as the Vice President of International Programs for L-3 Communications Corporation, based in Washington D.C. from 2007-2009.

General Wald has received numerous major military awards and decorations. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Relations from Troy University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in pre-law from North Dakota State University. He has completed coursework at Harvard University and the National War College. He has also been awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from North Dakota State University. General Wald currently serves on numerous non-profit and Think Tank Boards of Directors. Of note, he is on the Board of Trustees for the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Atlantic Council and the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. He also serves as a Senior Military Advisor to the United States Institute for Peace.

 

 

Anna Mikulska, Ph.D.

Anna Mikulska, Ph.D., is a nonresident fellow in energy studies at the Baker Institute’s Center for Energy Studies. Her research focuses on the geopolitics of natural gas within the EU, former Soviet Bloc and Russia. Read more »

Her current projects assessing potential use of natural gas as a geoeconomic tool and investigating ways to leverage U.S. LNG exports to bolster European energy security. Mikulska is also senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and at University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy where she teaches graduate-level seminars on energy policy and geopolitics of energy in Russia and Eurasia. She sits on the editorial board of the law review at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland and is  member of the scientific board for Energy Policy Studies. Mikulska speaks Polish, English, German, Farsi and Russian. She received a law degree from Adam Mickiewicz University, a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Windsor in Canada, and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Houston.

Ambassador Myung-Soo Ahn

Ambassador Myung-Soo Ahn

Ambassador Ahn is a 40-year veteran of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea.  His diplomatic work has primarily focused on international and multilateral trade.

He served as Ambassador to Turkmenistan from 2011 to 2014. Ambassador Ahn retired from the Ministry in 2015, but returned to duty as a diplomat representing Korea after being appointed by President Moon Jae-in as the Consul General of Korea in Houston in April 2020.

Read more »

Ambassador Ahn previously served as a Minister at the Korean Embassy in the Republic of Indonesia. Prior to that, he was the Director-General of the Multilateral Trade Bureau and the Head of Legal Service for International Trade at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1987 to 1989 and from 2002 to 2004, he served at the Korean Permanent Mission to the UN Offices in Geneva, Switzerland. He has also previously served at Korean Embassies in Brunei and Mauritania.

Originally from Seoul, Ambassador Ahn earned a B.A. in English Language and Literature from Seoul National University and an M.A. in International Politics from SAIS, Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C.

Kyle Bass

Kyle Bass

J. Kyle Bass is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Hayman Capital Management, an investment manager of private funds focused on global event-driven opportunities.

Mr. Bass is a founding member of the Committee on the Present Danger: China. Mr. Bass was the recipient of the 2019 Foreign Policy Association Medal for his responsible internationalism and is a current member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  Mr. Bass has testified as an expert witness before the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

Read more »

In 2015, Bass was recognized as one of the Top 25 Most Influential People in the Global Patent Market as named by Intellectual Asset Management magazine.  Mr. Bass has lectured on global economics at various universities, including Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, University of Chicago, University of Texas, and the University of Virginia.  Mr. Bass is the former Chair of the Risk Committee of the Board of Directors of the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO), which manages approximately $50 billion.

Before forming Hayman, Mr. Bass was a Managing Director at Legg Mason and a Senior Managing Director at Bear Stearns.  He graduated from Texas Christian University with a degree in finance.  Mr. Bass serves on the board of the Texas Department of Public Safety Foundation and Melinda’s Foods.

Enrique de la Madrid

Enrique de la Madrid

Enrique de la Madrid holds a Law degree from Mexico’s National Autonomous University, and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

He served as Secretary of Tourism between August 2015 and November 2018. Under his administration, Mexico ranked as the 6th most visited country by foreign visitors, surpassing important destinations such as the United Kingdom and Germany.

Read more »

He has extensive experience in the financial sector, as CEO of Bancomext, Mexico’s Eximbank, and as CEO of Financiera Rural, Mexico’s agricultural development bank. He also worked as Executive Director of Institutional Affairs and Corporate Communications for HSBC Latin America, and Technical Coordinator of the Presidency of Mexico’s banking and securities commission. He also served as the Executive President of ConMéxico, an organization that brings together México’s top consumer-product companies.

Between 2000 and 2003, he served as a Federal Congressman. Since early 2019, he has been the Director of the Centre for the Future of Cities of Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico’s prime private university. He writes a weekly column for El Universal, a leading Mexican newspaper, and is the director and host of the weekly TV program “Ahora Futuro; México y El Mundo” of ADN 40, with national coverage.

Valerie Hudson

Valerie Hudson

Valerie M. Hudson is a University Distinguished Professor and Holder of the George H.W. Bush Chair in the Department of International Affairs at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, where she directs the Program on Women, Peace, and Security.  In 2009, Foreign Policy Magazine named her one of the “Top 100 Global Thinkers.:  She is co-author of Sex and World Peace, Bare Branches, The Hillary Doctrine, and The First Political Order.

Read more »

Discussion: The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide

General Robert B. Neller

General Robert B. Neller served as the 37th Commandant of the United States
Marine Corps from September 2015 to July 2019. He retired from active duty 1
September 2019.

Read more »

A native of East Lansing, Michigan, Neller graduated from the University of
Virginia in 1975 with a degree in history and speech communication. He later
earned a master’s degree from Pepperdine University in human resources
management. After graduating from Virginia, Neller went directly into the Marine
Corps via the Platoon Leader Class.
A career Infantry Officer, Neller has commanded from Platoon through Service
Component HQs. He has been assigned as a General Officer in each of the 3
USMC active infantry Divisions and commanded the 3 rd Marine Division. He is a
joint qualified Officer having served in Europe at SHAPE as a NATO staff officer
and as the J3 of the Joint Staff.
Operationally, he participated in Operation Just Cause in Panama, Operation
Restore Hope in Somalia and Operation Iraqi Freedom. In OIF 05-07 during 2006,
he served as the Deputy Commanding General for Multi-National Force West in
Iraq’s Anbar Province.
He has attended the USMC’s Basic School, the Army’s Armor Officer Advanced
Course, USMC Command and Staff, the NATO Defense College and the Armed
Forces Staff College.
Upon retirement he moved to the Austin, TX area where he continues to transition
and adjust to playing the “second half of the game.”

Ambassador Jonathan Addleton

Jonathan Addleton was born and raised in the mountains of northern Pakistan.  A former United States Ambassador to Mongolia, he has also served as a five-time USAID Mission Director (India, Pakistan, Cambodia, Mongolia and Central Asia); USAID Representative to the European Union in Brussels; and United States Senior Civilian Representative for southern Afghanistan in Kandahar.​  Read more »

Prior to joining the Foreign Service in March 1984, he worked briefly at the World Bank, Macon Telegraph and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  Early USAID assignments included serving as Program Officer in Yemen, Jordan, South Africa and Kazakhstan.

Addleton’s awards include the Administrator’s Distinguished Career Service Award from the US Agency for International Development (USAID); ISAF Service Medal from NATO; Outstanding Civilian Service Medal from the United States Army; Christian A. Herter Award for intellectual courage and constructive dissent from the American Foreign Service Association; and the Polar Star, Mongolia’s highest civilian Award, from the President of Mongolia.

Addleton received his PhD and MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (Medford, MA).  He also has a BS from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL), where he was awarded the Richter Scholarship and Faricy Writing Prize. Following publication of Some Far and Distant Place, he was invited to serve as a Breadloaf Fellow at Middlebury College’s annual Summer Writers’ Conference.

Married to Fiona Mary Riach in Alness, Scotland in August 1985, they have three adult children.   Their permanent residence is now in Macon, GA where Addleton currently teaches international relations as an Adjunct at Mercer University.

Craig Allen

On July 26, 2018, Craig Allen began his tenure in Washington, DC, as the sixth President of the United States-China Business Council (USCBC), a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization representing over 200 American companies doing business with China. Prior to joining USCBC, Craig had a long, distinguished career in US public service. Read more »

Craig began his government career in 1985 at the Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA). He entered government as a Presidential Management Intern, rotating through the four branches of ITA. From 1986 to 1988, he was an international economist in ITA’s China Office.

In 1988, Craig transferred to the American Institute in Taiwan, where he served as Director of the American Trade Center in Taipei. He held this position until 1992, when he returned to the Department of Commerce for a three-year posting at the US Embassy in Beijing as Commercial Attaché.

In 1995, Craig was assigned to the US Embassy in Tokyo, where he served as a Commercial Attaché. In 1998, he was promoted to Deputy Senior Commercial Officer. In 1999, Craig became a member of the Senior Foreign Service.

From 2000, Craig served a two-year tour at the National Center for APEC in Seattle. While there, he worked on the APEC Summits in Brunei, China, and Mexico. In 2002, it was back to Beijing, where Craig served as the Senior Commercial Officer. In Beijing, Craig was promoted to the Minister Counselor rank of the Senior Foreign Service.

After a four-year tour in South Africa, Craig became Deputy Assistant Secretary for Asia at the US Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration. He later became Deputy Assistant Secretary for China. Craig was sworn in as the United States ambassador to Brunei Darussalam on December 19, 2014. He served there until July 2018, when he transitioned to President of the US-China Business Council.

Craig received a B.A. from the University of Michigan in Political Science and Asian Studies in 1979. He received a Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University in 1985.

Dr. Shmuel Bar

Dr. Shmuel Bar is Director of Studies at the Institute of Policy and Strategy in Herzliya, Israel and on the steering team of the annual “Herzliya Conference”. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at International Institute for Non-Proliferation Studies, an Adjunct Fellow at the Hudson Institute and has been (2007) Distinguished Koret Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Read more »

He has lectured at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya on issues relating to Israeli national security. Dr. Bar is also founder and CEO of IntuView Ltd – an Israeli based software company that has developed an integrated semantics-driven platform for full-automated real-time analysis and “meaning mining” of unstructured textual documents in various languages, including idea extraction, summarization, entity extraction/resolution and name matching through automated emulation of the intuition and knowledge of seasoned subject experts. Dr. Bar served for thirty years in the Israeli government, first in the IDF Intelligence and then in the analytic and operational positions in the Israeli Office of the Prime Minister. Since the mid 1980’s he specialized in the ideology and operational codes of Islamic fundamentalist movements and particularly of the Jihadi movement that later evolved into al-Qaeda. Between 1998-2002 Dr. Bar served as First Secretary at the Israeli Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands and in that capacity liaised with government agencies in the UK. Since 2002, Dr. Bar has headed research projects – some of them for US government agencies – and published extensively on issues relating to the Middle East, including strategic issues in the Middle East, deterrence in theory and practice, radical Islamic ideology, Iran, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians. He holds a Ph.D. in History of the Middle East from Tel-Aviv University.

Ambassador Rudolf Simon Bekink

Ambassador Rudolf Simon Bekink was born on Sept. 30, 1950, in Assen, a town of about 67,000 people in the northeastern part of the Netherlands. Read more »

He earned his Master of Arts in Economics from the University of Groningen in 1974. Two years later -after his military service, when he was commissioned as an Army Lieutenant – he began working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  At the beginning of his diplomatic career he worked in Athens, Greece, Luanda, Angola and the East Asia Division of the Foreign Ministry.

1982-1986 Served as the First Secretary for the Political Department in the Embassy in Washington, D.C., covering Africa, Latin America, Europe, and protocol.
1986-1989 Chargé d’Affaires to Ghana.
1989-1990 Deputy Head of Division, Ministry of Economic Affairs
1990-1992 Personnel Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
1992-1997 Deputy Head of Mission Dutch Permanent Representation to the OECD Paris, France
1997-2000 Director of Protocol for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
2000-2004 Ambassador to Sweden
2004-2008 Ambassador to Belgium
2008-2012 Ambassador to People’s Republic of China
2012 –2015  Ambassador to the United States

Ambassador Bekink retired in 2015. He and his wife, Gabrielle de Kuyper Bekink currently reside in Austin, Texas and Prouts Neck, Maine.  Together, they have five sons and six grandchildren.

“Ambassadors are permanently astonished,” he said. “I love to meet people who accomplish something in this world. It makes a diplomat cheer.”

Ms. Reva Bhalla

Reva Bhalla, VP of Global Analysis at Stratfor, is a leading expert on Middle Eastern, South Asian and Latin American affairs and plays an integral role in applying a forward-looking, strategic lens to Stratfor’s coverage of global events. 

Read more »

She oversees country assessments, monitors major geopolitical trends and ensures that all Stratfor content fits within the established analytical framework. Bhalla is a prominent speaker, regularly addressing organizations around the world, from large financial institutions to agricultural and real estate investment groups. She has delivered executive briefings to investors, business leaders and the U.S. defense and intelligence community and has been published in numerous foreign affairs journals, including The Journal of International Security Affairs. Her focus on global issues takes her all over the world, including Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Poland. She has been featured in numerous newspapers and broadcasts, including Bloomberg, CNN, The Associated Press, NPR, Time magazine, Al Jazeera English, FOX News, Haaretz, The New York Times, The Hindustan Times, Agencia Estado, Xinhua, Veja and Business Week. She has a master’s degree from the Security Studies Program of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and a Bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Texas.

 

 

Dr. H. W. Brands

Henry William Brands was born in Oregon, went to college in California, sold cutlery across the American West and earned graduate degrees in mathematics and history in Oregon and Texas. ~ Read more »

He taught at Vanderbilt University and Texas A&M University before joining the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History. He teaches history and writing to graduate students and undergraduates.

He writes on American history and politics, with books including The General vs. the President, Reagan, The Man Who Saved the Union, Traitor to His Class, Andrew Jackson, The Age of Gold, The First American and TR. Several of his books have been bestsellers; two, Traitor to His Class and The First American, were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

He lectures frequently on historical and current events and can be seen and heard on national and international television and radio. His writings have been translated into Spanish, French, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Czech, Dutch, Danish and Ukrainian.

For the past four years he has been writing a history of the United States in haiku form and publishing it on Twitter. He guesses he will be at it for two more years.

Dr. Seth Center

Seth Center is senior fellow and director of the Brzezinski Institute’s Project on History and Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). His work employs a historical lens to examine the contemporary national security agenda, develop applied history findings to inform responses to future challenges, and connect diplomatic and military historians to the policy community. Read more »

 

Prior to joining CSIS, Dr. Center served at the National Security Council (NSC) and the U.S. Department of State. He served as director for National Security Strategy and History at the NSC from 2017-2019, where he helped conceptualize and write the 2017 National Security Strategy. Dr. Center joined the NSC staff as a historian in the fall of 2016 to document the evolution of key national security initiatives of the Obama administration including managing the China relationship, counterterrorism policy, Iran policy, and broader strategic questions. He provided historical context and lessons learned for the NSC across the 2017 presidential transition. As a State Department historian, he produced policy-supportive historical research and analysis on a broad array of subjects including the origins and conduct of the Iraq War, post-conflict and stabilization operations, strategic communications and public diplomacy, and the organization and development of U.S. diplomacy. He also supported the department’s lessons learned efforts in partnership with the U.S. military and the intelligence community. He has taught and lectured on U.S. foreign policy and international history at universities, the Foreign Service Institute, and professional military education institutions. Dr. Center received his Ph.D. in diplomatic history from the University of Virginia and his B.A. from Cornell University in history and government.

Mr. Robert Chesney

Bobby Chesney is the Charles I. Francis Professor in Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Texas School of Law. In addition, he is the Director of the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, a University-wide research unit bridging across disciplines to improve understanding of international security issues. Read more »

In 2009, Professor Chesney served in the Justice Department in connection with the Detention Policy Task Force created by Executive Order 13493. He also previously served the Intelligence Community as an associate member of the Intelligence Science Board and as a member of the Advanced Technology Board. In addition to his current positions at the University of Texas, he is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution, a member of the American Law Institute, and a senior editor for the Journal of National Security Law & Policy. He is a co-founder and contributor to www.lawfareblog.com, the leading source for analysis, commentary, and news relating to law and national security. In addition to his blogging at Lawfare, those interested in national security law should consider following Professor Chesney on Twitter (@bobbychesney). Professor Chesney’s scholarship focuses on U.S. national security policies and institutions, encompassing both domestic and international law issues.

Professor Chesney is a magna cum laude graduate of both Texas Christian University and Harvard Law School. After law school he clerked for the Honorable Lewis A. Kaplan of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and the Honorable Robert D. Sack of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then practiced with the firm Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York (litigation), before beginning his academic career with Wake Forest University School of Law. There he received a teacher of the year award from the student body in one year, and from the school’s dean in another. In 2008 he came to the University of Texas School of Law as a visiting professor, and then joined UT on a permanent basis in 2009. He became the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in 2011.

Ambassador Henry Crumpton

Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton is the founder of Crumpton Group LLC, a strategic international advisory and business development firm. CG works with global corporations, including those in the infrastructure, energy, and financial services industries.  Ambassador Crumpton advises CEOs and their teams on the political, security, and commercial dynamics in emerging and frontier markets. Read more »

Ambassador Crumpton is a Director of Argan Inc. He is also on the advisory boards of The Coca-Cola Company and DC Capital Partners, a private equity firm.

From 2005 until 2007, Ambassador Crumpton served as the Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the U.S. Department of State. Ambassador Crumpton joined the CIA’s Clandestine Service in 1981 as an operations officer. For most of his 24-year career he operated in the foreign field, including assignments as Chief of Station. In Washington, he served at the FBI as Deputy Chief of the International Terrorism Operations Section, 1998-1999. He was Deputy Chief (Operations) of CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, 1999-2001. He led CIA’s Afghanistan campaign, 2001-2002. He was Chief of the CIA’s National Resources Division, 2003-2005. He received a B.A. in Political Science from the University of New Mexico and a Masters in International Public Policy, with honors, from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Ambassador Crumpton is the author of the New York Times best-selling book, The Art of Intelligence (2012). He is also a contributing author to Transforming U.S. Intelligence (2005). He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an honorary member of the OSS Society. Ambassador Crumpton is the recipient of the Intelligence Commendation Medal; the George H.W. Bush Award for excellence in counterterrorism; the Sherman Kent Award, in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the literature of intelligence; the Donovan Award; and the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the CIA’s highest award for achievement.

Major General Meir Dagan

Major General Meir Dagan was born in 1945 to Holocaust surviving parents. He joined the Israel Defense Forces in 1963, where he served until 1996 as paratrooper and, subsequently, rose through the ranks, from company to division commander and corpus commander. In addition, MG Dagan served in various GHQ staff positions. In the 1980s he set up the Lebanon liaison unit. Read more »

In 1996, MG Dagan was appointed head of the counter-terrorist staff at the Prime Minister’s office. In recent years, he was entrusted with various defense and security missions on behalf of the Prime Minister. MG Dagan served as a director of the Central Intelligence Services from 2002 – 2011. He holds a B.A. degree from Haifa University in political science and completed advanced military and security courses in the US. He was awarded, in April 1973, a medal of gallantry. MG Dagan is married and has 2 daughters, 1 son and 6 grand children. MG Dagan’s hobbies are classical music and painting.

Mr. Matthew Dowd

During the past thirty years, Matthew Dowd has helped shape strategies and campaigns for CEOs, corporations, foundations, governments, candidates, and presidents. He most recently founded ListenTo.Us, a community of independently minded folks who want to bring common sense to politics. Read more »

He also founded Paradox Capital, a social impact venture fund focused on for-profit social good companies.  His experience in business and politics will help bridge the paradox between capitalism and social consciousness.

Over the last 25 years, Dowd has been an active entrepreneur in Austin, Texas founding three companies which have been highly successful including Vianovo and Public Strategies, all of which he sold to his other partners to pursue other endeavors.

Dowd has worked both sides of the aisle, but now considers himself a diehard Independent.  Dowd’s political work includes serving as the chief strategist on two winning re-election efforts – for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006 and for President George W. Bush in 2004. His innovative approach on the 2004 campaign led the bi-partisan American Association of Political Consultants to name him Strategist of the Year.

In the 1980s and 1990s, he advised a wide variety of political clients including helping former Democrat Texas Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock win election and re-election. He has also worked as a member of Democrat U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen’s staff, and has worked on the staffs of two Democratic Congressmen.

Dowd currently serves as chief political analyst for ABC News where he appears on This Week, Good Morning America, and Nightline, and writes a regular column for various publications. Dowd covers not only politics but cultural, economic, and spiritual trends as well. He has served on the boards of various non-profit entities including Seton Family of Hospitals, a Catholic nonprofit health system in Texas.  He was adviser to Bono at the One Campaign, and to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.   He has taught seminars at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and the University of Texas’ LBJ School of Public Affairs.

He is co-author of the New York Times bestseller Applebee’s America: How Successful Political, Business and Religious Leaders Connect with the New American Community.

Dowd is the proud father of three sons, a beautiful daughter and a son and daughter who passed away.

Pedro Morenés Eulate

Pedro de Morenés y Álvarez de Eulate, who has held many senior positions in Spain’s government, as well as working in the shipbuilding and defense industries, was named on March 24, 2017, to be his country’s ambassador to the United States. Read more »

Morenés was born September 17, 1948, in Las Arenas, Vizcaya, Spain. He is a member of Spanish nobility; the second son of Don José María de Morenés y Carvajal, 4th Viscount of Alesón (son of the Count and Countess of the Asalto, Grandees of Spain) and Doña Ana Sofía Álvarez de Eulate y Mac-Mahón. Morenés earned a degree in law from the University of Navarra in 1978, and was later awarded a degree in business administration from the University of Desuto in Bilbao and a master’s from the Bremen (Germany) Institute of Shipping Economics.

Morenés started his career as director of procurement at Morenés y Fernandez, S.A. in 1974. He then worked in the export division of customs firm Vigomesa in Bilbao.

He moved into law in 1979 and in 1984 began working at the Marítimos Amya (AMYA) maritime law firm in Madrid. He moved in 1988 to Empresa Astilleros Españoles, focusing on international contracting. In 1991, Morenés transferred to the National Institute of Industry, where he was head of legal service in its naval construction unit. He also taught vessel chartering and shipping freight at the Spanish Maritime Institute of Madrid and at the European Institute for Maritime Studies. He was put in charge of the National Institute of Industry’s shipbuilding division in 1994.

Morenés entered government in May 1996 as secretary of state for defense. He was also on the board of directors of Telefónica and Tabacalera from 1996 until 1998. In May 2000, he was named secretary of state for security and two years later, in August 2002, took a similar role in the Ministry of Science and Technology Policy.

When his party went out of power in 2004, Morenés reentered the private sector, first as secretary general of the Entrepreneurs Circle. In March 2005, he became chairman of the board of Construcciones Navales del Norte and in June 2010 Morenés was named general director for Spain of the MBDA missile company. He also served on the board of defense contractor Instalaza which made, among other things, cluster bombs. When Spain banned cluster bombs in 2008, Morenés and Instalza sought compensation from the Spanish government because the company could no longer manufacture the banned devices. In January 2011, he also joined the board of directors of Segur Iberica, a private security firm.

On December 21, 2011, Morenés took over as defense minister. He served there until being replaced in November 2016.

Morenés and his wife, Goretti Escauriaza Barreiro, have three adult children: Ramon, Isabela and Sofia. Morenés enjoys golf and was president of the Aulamar Foundation, which promotes disabled persons’ access to sailing. He has also served as president of the golf club Real Club de la Puerta de Hierro de Madrid.

Ambassador Nabil Fahmy

Ambassador Nabil Fahmy was recently named Foreign Minister of the Arab Republic of Egypt.  Prior to that he was the founding Dean of the School of Public Affairs at the American University in Cairo, and the Chair of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies’ Middle East Project. Read more »

Before his appointment as Foreign Minister,  he was the Ambassador at Large at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry. He served as Ambassador of Egypt to the United States from 1999-2008. He also served as Egypt’s Ambassador to Japan from September 1997-September 1999 and before that as the Political Advisor to Egypt’s Foreign Minister from 1992-97. Dr. Fahmy has held numerous posts in the Egyptian Government since 1974. Ambassador Fahmy received his bachelor of science degree in Physics/Mathematics and his master of arts in management, both from the American University in Cairo. He also received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the Monterey Institute of International Studies which is an affiliate of Middlebury College in May 2009.

Consul General Adrian Farrell

Adrian Farrell was appointed as Ireland’s first Consul General to Texas and the US southwest in 2014.  The Consulate General was opened by Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny in March 2015.  Farrell has worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Ireland since 1997. Read more »

His previous assignments include postings to Ankara (Farrell was part of the two-diplomat team that established the new Irish Embassy in Turkey) and Berlin.  He has also worked in Dublin on Ireland’s two most recent Presidencies of the European Union in 2004 (at the Irish Foreign Ministry) and 2013 (at the Office of the Irish Prime Minister).  Farrell was temporarily seconded as a policy officer from the Prime Minister’s office in 2013/4 to the Irish Business and Employers’ Confederation (Ibec).

Ms. Michele Ferenz

A native of Switzerland, Michele Ferenz has more than 15 years of experience in natural resource management, international development and conflict resolution. Prior to joining The EastWest Institute, Michele worked at UNICEF covering post-crisis and transition countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East as well as environmental sustainability. Read more »

In early 2012, as Acting Country Director in Libya, she managed all programmatic and operational aspects of establishing a new UNICEF country presence in Tripoli. She joined the United Nations from the Consensus Building Institute in Cambridge, MA, where she oversaw the organization’s Middle Eastern portfolio and worked on global multi-stakeholder consultations on environment and development issues. Michele has taught international environmental policy and negotiation theory & practice at Columbia University, the University of Massachusetts, and the Pratt Institute of Design. She started her career in the Rome bureaus of CBS News and The New York Times.  She holds degrees from Brown University and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and speaks fluent German, Italian, French and English.   – See more at: http://www.ewi.info/node/2411#sthash.hG3yKSpf.dpuf

Mr. David J. Firestein

David J. Firestein is the Perot Fellow and EWI’s Senior Vice President for the Strategic Trust-Building Initiative and Track 2 Diplomacy.

Read more »

In this capacity, he oversees EWI’s China, East Asia and United States Program and Russia and United States Program, as well as the institute’s work on U.S.-Iran trust-building. A career U.S. diplomat from 1992 to 2010, Firestein is an expert in China, Russia, public diplomacy and U.S. politics. In his Foreign Service career, he served at the U.S. embassies in Beijing (5 years) and Moscow (4 years). Firestein speaks near native-level Chinese and fluent Russian and has interpreted for senior U.S. officials in both languages.

Firestein is the author or co-author of three books on China, including two China-published bestsellers: Pacific Reflections: Essays on Chinese and American Society and Culture(1997); and Here and There:  81 Conversations about China and America (2004).  In 1995-1996, Firestein wrote a column for the Beijing Youth Daily; he was the first foreigner ever to have a column in a PRC newspaper.  From 2000 to 2002, Firestein wrote over 40 articles, mostly on U.S. politics and society, for Russian newspapers and magazines.  In all, he has published some 130 articles in Chinese and Russian publications, including the Global Times, the China Youth Daily, the Legal Times, Noviye Izvestiya and other major periodicals. In the United States, Firestein’s recent commentary has appeared in the Dallas Morning News and the Austin American-Statesman.

Firestein taught U.S.-China relations and U.S.-Russia relations as an adjunct member of the graduate faculty at the University of Texas (Austin) from 2006 to 2008. In 2001, he also twice taught “Political Consulting and the American Political Campaign” at the Moscow State Institute (University) for International Relations (MGIMO), Russia’s top university for foreign affairs and premier diplomatic training facility. He was the first sitting foreign diplomat ever to garner a teaching position at MGIMO.

Firestein’s career highlights include domestic Foreign Service stints at the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy (as deputy executive director and senior advisor), the State Department’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) office, and the China desk.  From 2007 to 2009, Firestein was also an elected at-large member of the Board of Governors of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), the Foreign Service’s union and professional association; in this capacity, he represented about 9,000 State Department Foreign Service constituents.

Among Firestein’s major awards and honors are the 2006 “Secretary of State’s Award for Public Outreach,” MGIMO’s 2001 “Teaching Excellence Award,” the 1997 “Linguist of the Year Award” (for accomplishments in Mandarin Chinese in the U.S. Foreign Service), and designation, also in 1997, as one of Peking University’s “50 Most Distinguished Foreign Alumni.”  Also in 1997, the Beijing Youth Daily described Firestein as “arguably the most influential American in China” with respect to how Chinese viewed the United States.

Firestein is a frequent lecturer and speaker on U.S.-China relations, U.S.-Russia relations, public diplomacy, U.S. politics, and country music (especially, the political communication effect of American country music). In the latter field, his 2005 article, “The Honky Tonk Gap:  Country Music, Red State Identity, and the U.S. Election of 2004” is considered a seminal contribution.

Firestein holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in international relations and master’s degrees from the University of Texas in public affairs and Asian studies. Firestein is a native of Austin, Texas.

 

Vice Chancellor Joschka Fischer

Joschka Fischer was Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1998 to 2005.  His political career began in the State of Hesse where, from 1985 to 1987, he held the office of Minister for the Environment and Energy – making him the country’s first cabinet minister from the Green Party.  Read more »

After serving four years as political group chairman for the Greens in the Hessian Landtag, the State Assembly, he held the offices of Deputy Minister-President of the State of Hesse and Hessian State Minister for the Environment, Energy and Federal Affairs from 1991 to 1994.In 1994, Fischer entered federal politics and became co-chairman of the Green Party’s federal parliamentary group. From 2006 to 2007, Joschka Fischer held a professorship at the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group and of the Executive Board of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr. George Friedman

George Friedman is an internationally recognized geopolitical forecaster and strategist on international affairs and the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures. Read more »

Dr. Friedman is a New York Times bestselling author and his most popular book, The Next 100 Years, is kept alive by the prescience of its predictions. Other best-selling books include Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe, The Next Decade, America’s Secret War, The Future of War and The Intelligence Edge. His books have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Dr. Friedman has briefed numerous military and government organizations in the United States and overseas and appears regularly as an expert on international affairs, foreign policy and intelligence in major media.

For almost 20 years before resigning in May 2015, Dr. Friedman was CEO and then chairman of Stratfor, a company he founded in 1996. Friedman received his bachelor’s degree from the City College of the City University of New York and holds a doctorate in government from Cornell University.

Rob Gardner

Rob Gardner
Manager, Economics & Energy Division
Corporate Strategic Planning Department
Exxon Mobil Corporation

In Rob’s over 40 years in the industry, he has managed both Gas and Gas Liquid businesses in the United States. Read more »

He has worked in the Asia Pacific and been involved in Liquid Natural Gas business development, sales and project development. He has managed business development activities in a number of countries. He lived in Qatar and Indonesia working with National Oil Company representatives to promote LNG projects. In his early career, he worked in engineering activities involved in supplying gas to US markets and worked in sales of gas to those markets.

He manages the group responsible for preparing ExxonMobil’s Energy Outlook. Rob has worked in ExxonMobil’s Corporate Strategic Planning Department since 2009 leading the development of the company’s key outlooks.

Rob graduated from Louisiana State University in 1978 with a Bachelor of
Science Degree in Chemical Engineering and began his working career with Mobil Oil in Louisiana.

Dr. Thomas Garza

Thomas Jesús Garza (B.A. Haverford College; M.A. Bryn Mawr College; Ed.D. Harvard University) is UT Regents’ and University Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies, and Director of the Texas Language Center at the University of Texas, where he has received more than a dozen teaching awards during his 28-year tenure. Read more »

He teaches, in addition to Russian language and culture at all levels, courses on Russian literature, popular culture, and contemporary culture, including the topics of war and conscription, youth issues, digital media, and Putin’s role in shaping Russia. His current book project is on filmic and cultural portraits of machismo in contemporary Russian and Latino / Mexican cultures.

Ambassador Tony Garza

Former U.S. Ambassador, lawyer, distinguished public servant, and cross-border specialist Antonio Garza brings exemplary diplomatic, business, and political expertise to his work. By virtue of his position with White & Case and Vianovo Ventures, Ambassador Garza is uniquely positioned to assist corporations in navigating complex legal, cultural and political landscapes in Mexico, Latin America and the U.S.

Ambassador Ramón Gil-Casares Satrústegui

Ramón Gil -Casares Satrústegui is Spain’s Ambassador to the United States.  Born in Madrid on October 26th, 1953. He entered the Foreign Service in May 1982. Between 1982 and 1996 he worked in the Spanish Embassies of Equatorial Guinea and Uruguay, and in Spanish Consulates in Manila and New York, as well as in the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation in Madrid. Read more »

In May 1996, following José María Aznar’s election, he was appointed Director of the Department for International Affairs and Defense of the President’s Office. He held this position until July 2002, when he became the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs until 2004. From September 2004 to March 2005 he worked at the German Marshall Fund in Washington DC. From September 2005 until October 2008 he was the Ambassador of Spain to South Africa, with multiple accreditation in the Kingdom of Lesotho and the Republics of Mauritius and Madagascar. Between October 2008 and April 2011, he worked as Ambassador at Large at the Directorate General of Foreign Policy for Africa at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Madrid. From May 2011 to April 2012 he was the Ambassador of Spain to Sudan. As of April 13th, 2012 he has been appointed Ambassador of Spain to the United States of America.

He has a degree in Philosophy and in Law and a Diploma in International Studies from the Diplomatic School of Madrid. He is a Second Lieutenant of the Infantry.

Ambassador Carlos González Gutiérrez

Ambassador Carlos González Gutiérrez is the Consul General of Mexico in Austin since May 1st, 2015. As a career diplomat since 1987, Ambassador González Gutiérrez has specialized in Mexican communities in the US, as all of his designations abroad have been in the US. Read more »

In Mexico, in the late 90’s, he worked in the Program for Mexican Communities Abroad at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and from 2003 to 2009, he was the founding Executive Director of the Institute of Mexicans Abroad, the agency in charge of promoting ties and collaboration between Mexico and its diaspora.

Overseas, he has had four adscriptions. Early in his career, he was the Consul for Community Affairs at the Consulate General of Mexico in Los Angeles. Then, from 1999 to 2003 he was appointed as Counselor for Latino Affairs at the Mexican Embassy in Washington D.C.

In 2009, González Gutiérrez was appointed for the first time Head of Post as Consul General of Mexico in Sacramento. Besides the regular consular activities, he was in charge of monitoring public policies implemented in the state that could affect Mexico or Mexican communities in California, given that Sacramento is the seat of the powers of the state.

After six years in Sacramento, Ambassador González Gutiérrez was transferred to another capital city as Consul General of Mexico in Austin, having to report yet again the public policies of Texas, as much as to look after the daily general services of the Consulate for Mexicans in areas such as documentation, protection and community development.

In September 2011, he was promoted by the President of Mexico to the rank of Ambassador.

He has a B.A. in International Relations from El Colegio de México and a Masters Degree also in International Relations from the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California. He is author of several publications about the Mexican population in the United States.

The Ambassador is married to Alina. They have two daughters: Marina and Camila.

Dr. Russell A. Green

Russell A. Green, Ph.D., is the Will Clayton Fellow in International Economics at Rice University’s Baker Institute. He is also an adjunct professor in the Economics Department, where he teaches international finance and macroeconomics. Green’s current research focuses on financial market development in emerging market economies, financial inclusion and Indian developmental challenges. Read more »

His writing regularly appears in op-ed pages of prominent American and Indian newspapers.

Prior to joining the Baker Institute, Green spent four years in India as the U.S. Treasury Department’s first financial attaché to that country. His engagement in India primarily focused on financial market development, India’s macroeconomy and illicit finance, and also included diverse topics such as cross-border tax evasion and financing global climate change activities. He worked with counterparts in India’s government to develop the U.S.-India Economic and Financial Partnership, launched in 2009 by Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Green was previously the deputy director of the U.S. Treasury’s Office of International Monetary Policy, where he led efforts to strengthen International Monetary Fund exchange rate policies and international reserve management. He started his tenure at Treasury in the Office of Quantitative Policy Analysis, focusing on emerging market vulnerabilities and debt sustainability analysis. His economic research has addressed bank regulation, financial liberalization, international reserve accumulation, bilateral investment treaties and the economics of international reproductive health. Green speaks Spanish and Japanese and holds a B.A. from Pomona College and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo

Mr. Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal was born in Monterrey, Nuevo León, on April 19, 1957. He obtained his B.A. in Economics at the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon, and later did graduate studies in economics at Arizona State University (ASU) and the University of Pennsylvania (EBD). Read more »

Mr. Guajardo Villarreal was Chief Economist of the Brazil Section, and Associate Economist in the Fiscal Affairs Department at the International Monetary Fund (1988-1991) before becoming Director of the North American Free Trade Agreement Affairs Office, based at the Embassy of Mexico in Washington, D. C. (1994).

Mr. Guajardo has held different positions in the Federal Government, first as undersecretary at the Foreign Affairs Ministry (1994-1997); later as Deputy Ministry of Tourist Development (1997); and as Planning, Communication and Liaison Technical Secretary for the Trade and Industrial Development Ministry (1998-1999).

At the state level, he was head of the Governor’s Executive Office (2003 – 2006), year in which he ran as candidate for Congress for the First Local District of Monterrey, position that won, becoming leader of the Minority Group of the Nuevo Leon State Congress, in the LXX Legislature.

His latest positions were Federal Congressman for the Second District of Nuevo Leon, Chairman of the Economics Commission, Member of the Treasury and Public Credit Commission, and President of the Mexico-U.S.A. Friendship Group at the LXI Legislature of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, and Coordinator of the Entrepreneurial Liaison in the Presidential Campaign of Mr. Enrique Peña Nieto.

He has been a full time professor at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León; and assistant professor at the Arizona State University and the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania.

On December 1st of 2012, Mr. Guajardo Villarreal was appointed as Secretary of the Economy by the President Enrique Peña Nieto.

Secretary Gloria Guevara

Ms. Guevara was appointed Secretary of Tourism by President Felipe Calderón on March 10, 2010.  A few days later, she was also designated Director General of the Mexican Tourist Board.  In November 2005, she was appointed Vice President and Director General of Sabre Travel Network, Mexico.  Sabre Travel Network is a leading firm in the world of reservations, technology and travel.  Read more »

It has the largest market share in Mexico, comprising the strategic alliance between Sabre Holdings, Aeroméxico and Mexicana. The Secretary of Tourism holds a B.A. in Informatics from the Universidad Anáhuac, where she also completed a specialization in Marketing. She studied Management at IPADE, Project Administration at George Washington University and holds an MBA from the Kellogg Business School at Northwestern University. Over the past three years, she has been nominated as one of the 50 most influential women in Mexico by Expansión Magazine (CNN Expansion).

Ms. Karen Elliott House

Karen Elliott House retired in March 2006 as Publisher of The Wall Street Journal, Senior Vice President of Dow Jones & Company, and a member of the company’s executive committee.  She is a broadly experienced business executive with particular expertise and experience in international affairs stemming from a distinguished career as a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and editor. Read more »

She is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and has just completed a book entitled “On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines—and Future,”. Her journalism awards include a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for coverage of the Middle East (1984), two Overseas Press Club awards for coverage of the Middle East and of Islam and the Edwin M. Hood award for Excellence in Diplomatic Reporting for a series on Saudi Arabia (1982). In both her news and business roles, Ms. House has traveled widely over many years and has interviewed world leaders including, Saddam Hussein, Lee Kwan Yew,  Zhu Rongji, Vladimir Putin, Shimon Peres, Benjamim Natanyahu, Saudi King Abdullah, Hosni Mubarak, Margaret Thatcher, Richard Nixon, Helmut Kohl, George H.W. Bush, the late King Hussein and Yasser Arafat. She is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin where in 1996 she was the recipient of the University’s “Distinguished Alumnus” award.  She studied and taught at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics and she holds honorary degrees from Boston University (2003) and Lafayette College (1992).  She also is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  Ms. House is married and is the mother of four children ages 16 to 38.

Ambassador Robert Hutchings

Robert Hutchings is dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. Before joining the LBJ School in March 2010, Hutchings was Diplomat in Residence in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.  Read more »

He was also faculty chair of the Master in Public Policy program there and served for five years as assistant dean of the school. During a public service leave from Princeton University in 2003-05, he was Chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council in Washington. His combined academic and diplomatic career has included service as Fellow and Director of International Studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Director for European Affairs with the National Security Council, and Special Adviser to the Secretary of State, with the rank of ambassador. Ambassador Hutchings served earlier in his career as deputy director of Radio Free Europe and on the faculty of the University of Virginia, and has held adjunct appointments at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He is author of At the End of the American Century and of American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War, which was published in German as als der Kalte Krieg zu Ende war, along with many articles and book chapters on European and transatlantic affairs.

His current research is focused on an LBJ School initiative on “Reinventing Diplomacy,” which combines teaching, public outreach, professional training, and scholarly research on topics in international diplomacy.  He is co-editor and contributing author of a book (forthcoming from Oxford University Press) of historical case studies, entitled “Foreign Policy Breakthroughs: Cases in Successful Diplomacy.”  

Dr. William Charles Inboden III

William Inboden is Executive Director of the William P. Clements, Jr. Center for National Security at the University of Texas-Austin. He also serves as Associate Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and Distinguished Scholar at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. Read more »

Inboden’s other current roles include Non-Resident Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Senior Advisor with Avascent International, and Associate Scholar with Georgetown University’s Religious Freedom Project. Previously he served as Senior Director for Strategic Planning on the National Security Council at the White House, where he worked on a range of foreign policy issues including the National Security Strategy, strategic forecasting, democracy and governance, contingency planning, counter-radicalization, and multilateral institutions and initiatives. Inboden also worked at the Department of State as a Member of the Policy Planning Staff and a Special Advisor in the Office of International Religious Freedom, and has worked as a staff member in both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives

Inboden has also served as Senior Vice President of the London-based Legatum Institute, and as a Civitas Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is a contributing editor to Foreign Policy magazine, and his commentary has appeared in numerous outlets including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Sky News, and BBC. He has lectured widely in academic and policy settings, and received numerous research and professional development fellowships. He is the author of Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945-1960: The Soul of Containment (Cambridge University Press) as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Inboden received his Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in history from Yale University, and his A.B. from Stanford University.

Admiral Bob Inman

Admiral Bob Inman graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1950, and from the National War College in 1972. He became an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Austin in 1987. He was appointed as a tenured professor holding the Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Chair in National Policy in August 2001. Read more »

He served as Interim Dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs from 1 January to 31 December 2005 and again from January 2009 to March 2010.

Admiral Inman served in the U.S. Navy from November 1951 to July 1982, when he retired with the permanent rank of Admiral. While on active duty he served as Director of the National Security Agency and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. After retirement from the Navy, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC) in Austin, Texas for four years and Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Westmark Systems, Inc., a privately owned electronics industry holding company for three years. Admiral Inman also served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas from 1987 through 1990.

Mr. Nathaniel Karp

Nathaniel Karp was appointed BBVA chief U.S. economist in 2004 to assist the Group’s management in the expansion strategy in the U.S. market. His main responsibilities are conducting in-depth analyses of macroeconomic variables, monetary policy, and regional and industry trends for BBVA Compass. Karp reports to President and CEO Manolo Sánchez. Read more »

Karp’s team develops econometric tools and models, and performs rigorous and objective assessments on several topics relevant to the group’s operations in the U.S. The team publishes numerous documents on the U.S. economy and frequently presents them to customers and communities served by BBVA Compass. Karp regularly provides media interviews and has appeared on Bloomberg TV and MSNBC.

Karp is a member of the American Bankers Association Economic Advisory Committee, a noted group of economists that formulate perspectives on the U.S. and local economies for policymakers. In 2010, Bloomberg News named Karp and his team the top forecaster of 10-year Treasury yields. In 2011, he earned a sixth-place ranking in unemployment forecasting. Karp ranked among the top five for non-farm payroll forecasting in 2010 and 2011.

Karp joined BBVA Group in 1999 after working for the University of Warwick, the World Bank, Republic Bank, Mexico’s Ministry of Education and Advance Technology for Trade Information and Services. Previously, Karp worked at BBVA Bancomer as director of financial and banking research.

 

Karp earned an undergraduate degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and a Ph.D. from the University of Warwick in England.

Dr. Alan Kessler

Alan Kessler is a Resident Intelligence Officer at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. As an officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Analysis (DA), he drafted a wide range of analytic products on strategic communications to support US public diplomacy and developed new methods to assess the effectiveness of technical collection platforms for senior intelligence community and policy customers. Read more »

Prior to serving in the DA, Dr. Kessler taught courses on international relations and foreign policy as a faculty member of the Government Department at the University of Texas at Austin.  He is a graduate of the University of Florida and has advanced degrees in political science from the University of Michigan and UCLA.

Mr. Hilal Khashan

Hilal Khashan is a Professor of Political Science at the American University of Beirut. He is the author of six books and more than 150 articles. His most recent book is titled Hizbullah: A Mission to Nowhere (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2019; the paperback version will be published in June 2021). Read more »

He is currently writing a book titled Saudi Arabia: The Dilemma of Political Reform and the Illusion of Economic Development. His articles appeared in journals such as The Journal of Conflict Resolution, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Orbis, The British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Security Dialogue, Middle East Quarterly, Third World Quarterly, Israel Affairs, International Journal of Kurdish Studies, and World Affairs. He is a regular contributor to Geopolitical Futures.

Brigadier Tim Lai

Tim Lai was born in Paris, France in 1963, to parents in diplomatic service. He grew up in New York, Geneva and London, and was educated at the Montesori School in Manhattan, the Êcole Internationale de Genève and Berkhamsted School in Hertfordshire. He completed a Masters degree at St Andrews University, during which time he spent summers working in industry, city banking and local government. Read more »

He attended the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the Army Air Corps in 1986, from whence he transferred to the Royal Irish Rangers.  His early years in the Army were spent at regimental duty in Germany and England, and on operations in Northern Ireland; he served as platoon commander, company second-in-command, Regimental Signals Officer and Adjutant.  An initial Grade 3 staff appointment in the G3 branch of Headquarters Land Command was followed by promotion to Major in 1996 and company command.

He attended the Advanced Command and Staff Course at the Joint Services Command and Staff College from 1996-98, gaining Masters Degrees in Defence Technology from Cranfield University and in Defence Studies from Kings College, London. He then served as Chief of Staff at Headquarters 20th Armoured Brigade in Germany and on operations in Bosnia with Headquarters Multi-National Division (South West), part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) Stabilisation Force.  This was followed by company command with 1st Battalion, The Black Watch, in Germany and on operations in Kosovo.  Promoted Lieutenant Colonel in 2002, he was posted to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) as Chief Operations Officer for a 17,500 strong military force, prior to transferring to, and assuming command of, 1st Battalion, The Highlanders, in Scotland, on operations in Bosnia, and in Germany.  Following command, he was a Grade 1 staff officer in the Directorate for Strategic Plans at the Ministry of Defence, with responsibility for the Asia Pacific region, including cross-Whitehall coordination on Afghanistan.

He was promoted to Colonel in 2007 and deployed on operations with the Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan, a US-led organisation responsible for the reform and development of Afghan security forces and ministerial institutions. Here he was Chief J5 Policy & Plans, also responsible for inter-agency coordination and mentoring in the Afghan Ministries of Defence and Interior.  He was awarded the Bronze Star.  On his return to the UK, he became Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for J5 Policy and Plans at the Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood, where he covered the Asia Pacific region, with a particular focus upon Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Counter-Terrorism.

Promoted again in 2009, to Brigadier, he was seconded and deployed to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) as Senior Military Advisor to the Special Representative of the Secretary General, where he worked to strengthen UNAMA’s cooperation with the International Security Assistance Force and NATO’s Senior Civilian Representative. From Kabul, he moved to Washington DC in the United States, as the United Kingdom’s Military Attaché from 2010 to 2013, where he also completed a Bachelors Degree in Law from the Open University.

Tim Lai recently finished attending the programme of strategic studies at the Royal College of Defence Studies in London and is assuming the role as Deputy Commanding General of the 3rd (US) Corps at Fort Hood, Texas.  He is married to Jenni, with whom he has a young daughter, Cara, and son, Giles.  His interests are family, reading, walking, skiing, travelling and armchair sports.

Dr. Phil Levy

Phil Levy is senior fellow on the global economy at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Previously he was associate professor of business administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. He was formerly a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and taught at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Read more »

From 2003 to 2006, he served first as senior economist for trade for President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers and then as a member of Secretary of State Rice’s Policy Planning Staff, covering international economic matters. Before working in government, he was a faculty member of Yale University’s Department of Economics for nine years and spent one of those as academic director of Yale’s Center for the Study of Globalization

His academic writings have appeared in such outlets as The American Economic Review, Economic Journal, and the Journal of International Economics. He is a regular contributor to Foreign Policy magazine’s online Shadow Government section and writes on topics including trade policy, economic relations with China, and the European economic crisis. Dr. Levy has testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Joint Economic Committee, the House Committee on Ways and Mean, and the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He received his PhD in Economics from Stanford University in 1994 and his AB in Economics from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1988.

 

Ambassador Lewis Lucke

Ambassador Lewis Lucke is Executive Director of Daroke Resources LLC www.daroke.com brokering US and international investment into developing countries in Africa and Latin America, especially infrastructure project such as affordable housing, mining, renewable energy and power production. Read more »

In 2014, Ambassador Lucke returned on a recall appointment with USAID in Jordan working on the effects of the Syria crisis on Jordan. In 2010, he served as “US Response Coordinator” for the Haiti earthquake, leading the United States’ $1.0 billion relief and recovery program. Ambassador Lucke was nominated by President George W. Bush and served as US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Swaziland during the Bush Administration. He served for 27 years overseas with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). He was the first USAID Mission Director for Iraq 2002-2004, where he directed a $4.0 billion reconstruction and economic development program, USAID’s largest program ever and the largest reconstruction effort funded by the United States since the Marshall Plan. Ambassador. Lucke is from Austin, Texas, married with three grown children. Mr. Lucke received a Bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona. Mr. Lucke served in the U.S. Foreign Service since 1978 in ten countries: Mali, Senegal, Costa Rica, Tunisia, Bolivia, Jordan, Haiti, Brazil, Iraq and Swaziland. He had been USAID Mission Director in his last five posts of Bolivia, Jordan, Brazil, Haiti, and Iraq. Ambassador Lucke has received USAID’s two highest awards, the Administrator’s Distinguished Career Award in 2001, and the Agency’s award for Heroism in 2004. He was named a Distinguished Alumnus of 2003 from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. He received the Secretary of Defense’s Award for Exceptional Public Service in 2004. In 2012 he received the inaugural “Inspire Humanitarian Award” from an international affairs organization in Austin, Texas. Mr. Lucke is fluent in French and Spanish and has a working knowledge of Arabic. He is the author of “Waiting for Rain: Life and Development in Mali, West Africa” published in 2000.

Senator Dick Lugar

Senator Lugar recently retired after six terms as the 17th longest serving Senator in U.S. history.  He is a past chairman of both the Agriculture Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee.  He served continuously as Chairman or Ranking Member of one of those Committees from 1985 until 2013.  Read more »

In these posts he was central to U.S. efforts to improve global food security and domestic nutrition, and he was a champion for effective foreign assistance programs.  He was the main author of the Lugar-Casey Global Food Security bill of 2009, which sought to make long-term global agricultural productivity and rural development a top U.S. development priority.  Senator Lugar is also the manager of his family’s 604-acre corn, soybean, and tree farm located within the city limits of Indianapolis, Indiana.  As a boy, he worked with his father on this land, and he frequently has observed that his farm has improved yields fourfold during his lifetime.  As a farmer, he has sought to employ the most advanced techniques and inputs available to maximize productivity and protect the environment.

Click here to learn more about life and work of Senator Richard G. Lugar (Ret.)

Congressman Michael McCaul

Congressman Michael T. McCaul is currently serving his fifth term representing Texas’ 10th District in the United States Congress. On January 3, 2013, the beginning of the 113th Congress, Rep. McCaul became Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. Read more »

The Committee has oversight of the Department of Homeland Security ensuring it is able to carry out its core mission of protecting the American people from terrorist attacks.

Prior to Congress, Michael McCaul served as Chief of Counter Terrorism and National Security in the U.S. Attorney’s office, Western District of Texas, and led the Joint Terrorism Task Force charged with detecting, deterring and preventing terrorist activity. McCaul also served as Texas Deputy Attorney General under current U.S. Senator John Cornyn, and served as a federal prosecutor in the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section in Washington, D.C. A fourth generation Texan, Congressman McCaul earned a B.A. in Business and History from Trinity University and holds a J.D. from St. Mary’s University School of Law. In 2009 Congressman McCaul was honored with St. Mary’s Distinguished Graduate award.  He is also a graduate of the Senior Executive Fellows Program of the School of Government, Harvard University. Congressman McCaul is married to his wife, Linda.  They are proud parents of five children: Caroline, Jewell, and the triplets Lauren, Michael and Avery.

Sir Jim McLay

Sir Jim McLay is special adviser to Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully, special envoy for Prime Minister John Key and accredited as New Zealand’s representative to the Palestinian Authority.  Formerly New Zealand’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. Read more »

He led the New York end of New Zealand’s successful campaign for election to a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for the 2015-2016 term, and has served as New Zealand’s representative on the Security Council since 1 January 2015.

Jim McLay was a Member of the New Zealand Parliament from 1975 until his retirement from politics in 1987. While in Parliament, he served as Deputy Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Attorney General and Minister of Justice. In 1987, he received the Queen’s Service Order (QSO) for public services; and, in 2003, was made a Companion of the Order of New Zealand (CNZM) for services to conservation. Before entering Parliament, he practised as a Barrister. In 2015 he was made knight companion to the Order of New Zealand.

Secretary José Antonio Meade Kuribreña

José Antonio Meade Kuribreña is the Finance Minister of Mexico and the former Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico. Minister Meade was born in Mexico. He received a degree in Economics from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México; a Law degree from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and a PhD in Economics from Yale University. Read more »

 As a professor, he has taught Microeconomics and Macroeconomics courses at ITAM and Yale University, as well as courses in Economic Analysis of the Law at ITAM’s Masters Program in Public Policy.

He has received recognition for his research on Economic Analysis of the Law, an Honors Degree in Economics and the National Tlacaelel Award.

He has served as:

  • General Director of Financial Planning at the National Commission for the Retirement Savings’ System .
  • Deputy Secretary of Bank Savings Protection at Mexico’s Institute for the Protection of Bank Savings.
  • General Director of Banking and Savings at Mexico’s Ministry of Finance and Public Credit.
  • Chief Executive Officer of the National Bank for Rural Credit, currently in liquidation.
  • Chief Executive Officer of Financiera Rural.
  • Chief of Staff of Ministry of Finance and Public Credit.
  • Undersecretary of Finance (Tax) of Ministry of Finance and Public Credit.
  • Undersecretary of Finance and Public Credit.
  • Secretary of Energy
  • Secretary of Finance and Public Credit.

Dr. Rabi Mohtar

Dr. Rabi Mohtar is the TEES Endowed Professor at Texas AM University, College Station, USA. He is the Founding Director of Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI) a member of Qatar Foundation, Research and Development and the Founding Director Strategic Projects at Qatar Foundation Research and Development. Read more »

He was also the inaugural Director of the Global Engineering Programs at Purdue University, Indiana USA. Professor Mohtar focused on conserving natural resources (including land, water, air, and biological resources) that face global challenges such as increasing food and water supplies for a growing population. He developed environmental and natural resources conservation engineering programs that evaluate the environmental impacts of land use and water management; developed innovative soil and groundwater remediation technologies; applied numerical methods to biological engineering systems; characterized the soil water medium at the pedon, field, and watershed scales. He also designed and evaluated international sustainable water management programs that deal with population growth and water shortage conditions in arid climates. His research has resulted in improved methods for environmental and natural resources engineering, many of which have been adopted by other professionals and agencies internationally.

He received numerous international research awards and honors including the Kishida International award for contributions to agricultural research. He served on the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on water security since 2009-11 (vice chair 2011), climate change agenda council 2011-present), board of governors of the World Water Council (2012-present), advisory board of the UNFCC momentum of change initiative (2012-present), advisory board of the President of the University of Alberta Water Initiative (2012-present) among many other global leadership roles. Prof. Mohtar has published over 200 publications including peer-reviewed articles and refereed conference proceedings; and book chapters.

Mr. John Edwin Mroz

John Edwin Mroz is the President and CEO of the EastWest Institute, a  leading  international policy organization  founded in 1980 to focus on collaborative and practical responses to the most critical threats to global peace and stability.  EWI is known for its action bias and results-driven mandate, its fierce independence, and recognized track-record of building trust and fostering collaborative teams which generate practical solutions. Read more »

Over thirty years, Mroz and his international team have made EWI the ‘go-to’ global hub of Track 2 diplomacy for governments, the private sector and international organizations.  Today EWI is the worldwide leader in fostering international cooperation in cyberspace, including its annual Worldwide Cybersecurity Summits (visit www.ewi.info) that bring policy, business, technology and law enforcement leaders from forty nations together to create cybersecurity rules of the road and push for solutions to practical problems. EWI’s deep, action-oriented work in regional cooperation and economic security and it’s special high-level engagement with China, Russia, India, Europe and the U.S. on high consequence issues distinguishes EWI from traditional think tanks.  Mroz has served as advisor to more than twenty governments around the world and has been decorated for his work including Germany’s highest honor to a non-citizen for his role in the reunification of Germany.  He frequently contributes to Foreign Affairs and other publications and is the author of the acclaimed Beyond Security on the Arab-Israeli conflict.  John lives in New York City with his wife Karen. He enjoys everything associated with ‘discovery’ and helping others.

Ambassador Cameron Munter

Cameron Munter has been a career diplomat, serving in some of the most conflict-ridden areas of the globe. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan from 2010-2012, where he guided U.S.-Pakistani relations through a strained period, including the operation against Osama bin Laden, while leading a 2,500-employee embassy. Read more »

Previously he served as Ambassador to Serbia, where he negotiated Serbian domestic consensus for European integration and managed the Kosovo independence crisis.

Munter also served at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, overseeing U.S. civilian and military cooperation in planning the drawdown of U.S. troops. In Europe, he served in the Czech Republic and Poland, where he helped manage the American contribution to those countries’ integration into the global economy. He was a Director at the National Security Council at the White House, and had numerous other domestic assignments at the State Department in Washington.

Before joining the Foreign Service, Munter taught European history at the University of California Los Angeles. He also taught at Columbia University School of Law and has two honorary doctoral degrees. For the past two years, Munter has been Professor of International Relations at Pomona College in Claremont, California, as well as a Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Born in California in 1954, Munter graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University and earned a doctorate in Modern European History from John Hopkins University.

 

Mr. Andrew Natsios

Andrew S. Natsios is an executive professor and director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs. Natsios was most recently a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and former administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Read more »

As USAID administrator from 2001-2006, Natsios managed reconstruction programs in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan. He also served as US special envoy to Sudan in 2006-2007. Retired from the US Army Reserves at the rank of lieutenant colonel after twenty-three years, Natsios is a veteran of the Gulf War. From 1993 to 1998, he was vice president of World Vision US, the largest faith-based nongovernmental organization in the world, with programs in 103 countries. Earlier in his career, Natsios served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and as the chief financial and administrative officer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He also served as the CEO of Boston’s Big Dig, the largest construction project in American history, after a cost overrun scandal.

He is the author of three books: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1997); The Great North Korean Famine (2001); and his latest book, Sudan, South Sudan and Darfur: What Everyone Needs to Know, published in 2012 by Oxford University Press. He has contributed to thirteen other books.

Dr. Shannon K. O’Neil

Shannon O’Neil is the Douglas Dillon fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Her expertise includes U.S.-Latin American relations, energy policy, trade, political and economic reforms, and immigration. Read more »

She is the author of the book, Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead, which analyzes the political, economic, and social transformations Mexico has undergone over the last three decades and their significance for U.S.-Mexico relations.

She directed CFR’s Independent Task Force on U.S.-Latin America Relations. In addition to her work at CFR, Dr. O’Neil has taught in the political science department at Columbia University. She is a frequent commentator on major television and radio programs, and her work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Affairs Latinoamerica, Americas Quarterly, Política Exterior, Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, among others, and she has testified before the U.S. Congress on U.S. policy toward Mexico. Prior to joining CFR, she was a justice, welfare, and economics fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. She was also a Fulbright scholar in Mexico and Argentina. Prior to her academic work, Dr. O’Neil worked in the private sector as an equity analyst at Indosuez Capital Latin America and Credit Lyonnais Securities. She holds a BA from Yale University, an MA in international relations from Yale University, and a PhD in government from Harvard University.

Ambassador Andrew Peacock

Andrew Peacock was born February 13, 1939 in Melbourne and attended Scotch College and the University of Melbourne. He was elected President of the Victorian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia in 1965 – the youngest person to ever hold that position.In 1966, following the retirement of Sir Robert Menzies, Peacock was elected as the Member for Kooyong in the House of Representatives. Read more »

 In 1969, he was appointed Minister for the Army and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister – the youngest ever Minister in Australia’s history.

Subsequently, he held the portfolios of Minister assisting the Treasurer, Minister for External Territories, Minister for the Environment, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Industry and Commerce. In Opposition, he was twice Leader of the Opposition and also Shadow Treasurer, Shadow Foreign Minister, Shadow Minister for Trade and Shadow Attorney General. As Foreign Minister, Peacock was elected Vice President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, while as Minister for External Territories he set Papua New Guinea on the road to self-government.

Peacock retired from Parliament in 1994 and was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia and Grand Chief Companion of the Order of Logohu in Papua New Guinea – thus being the recipient of both countries’ highest civilian honors. In 1994, on the nomination of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he was elected President of the International Democrat Union and also served as President of the Pacific Democrat Union. 1996, he was appointed Australian Ambassador to the USA and on completion of this term a motion was moved in the US House of Representatives commending his outstanding work. On return to Australia, Peacock was appointed Chairman, President and CEO of Boeing Australia. He has since retired and whilst living in Texas, USA remains an Australian Citizen.

General Harry D. Raduege

Lieutenant General Harry D. Raduege, Jr. (USAF, Ret) is Chairman of the Center for Cyber Innovation, Senior Advisor, & Director for Cyber Risk Services for Deloitte & Touche LLP where he works globally with clients across government and industry in reducing risk to their business and mission operations due to cyber attacks and other unauthorized intrusions.   Read more »

General Raduege retired after serving 35 years in the U.S. military. He worked in the areas of technology, including telecommunications, space, information, and network operations. He served more than 17 years in joint duty assignments and was a 4-time Federal activity CIO. In his last position, he led Department of Defense net-centric operations as the Director of the Defense Information Systems Agency. In that role, he directed planning, engineering, and implementation of interoperable communications and intelligence systems serving the needs of the President, Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, combatant commanders, and the military Services. Notably, he led efforts to restore communications to the Pentagon following the September 11th terrorist attacks; upgraded Presidential communications; and led the successful expansion of the Department’s Global Information Grid through a $1 billion transformational communications program.

General Raduege was also appointed by the Secretary of Defense as the Commander of the Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations and Deputy Commander for Global Network Operations and Defense for the U.S. Strategic Command. In these roles, he was the first commander assigned responsibility for directing the operation and defense of the Global Information Grid to assure timely and secure net-centric capabilities across the entire Department. He also served as the Manager of the National Communications System and led our Nation’s efforts to prioritize the restoration of telecommunications throughout New York City and the Pentagon following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Prior to his last assignments, Raduege directed command and control systems for North American Aerospace Defense Command, U.S. Space Command, and Air Force Space Command. He also served as the Chief Information Officer for all three commands, was the architect for computer network defense and attack capabilities established within the Department of Defense, and was the National spokesman for the Department during the successful “Year 2000” computer roll-over efforts.

General Raduege directed command and control communications and was the CIO for the U.S. Central Command for 3 years, including relocation efforts required after the terrorist bombing of Khobar Towers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Earlier, he served as the first commander of the Air Force C4 Agency and was the Joint Chiefs of Staff architect for all satellite communications supporting over 500,000 deployed military members during the Gulf War in 1991.  He was inducted into the United States Air Force Cyberspace Hall-of-Fame in May 2011 and received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Cybersecurity from The America’s Future Series in 2014.

Mr. Luis Robles Miaja

Mr. Luis Robles Miaja is Chairman of the Board of Directors of BBVA Bancomer and President of the Mexican Banking Association (ABM), he is also a prominent lawyer with extensive experience and recognition in the financial and banking sectors in Mexico. Read more »

A passionate connoisseur of music and arts, Luis Robles was born in Mexico City and he did his undergraduate studies at the Free School of Law (Escuela Libre de Derecho) where he obtained his B.A. in Law. He has a deep knowledge of the global economic environment and has written articles on banking and finance law that have been published in various specialized journals, in addition to being a speaker at various international forums so he is considered an opinion leader in the financial business environment.

He started his career in the financial sector as a Director Partner of Robles & Zaldívar Law Firm from 1984 to 1993. In BBVA Bancomer has held the positions of Chief Legal Officer of Mexico’s BBV Financial Group (1993-1998); after that he was appointed Chief Legal Officer for Latin America of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya (BBVA) (1998-2000); Chief Legal Officer for the Americas of BBVA (2000-2007); and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors at BBVA Bancomer (2007-2012).

He also stands out for his valuable participation in various national and international professional associations. At the ABM he has served with distinction in various positions such as Vice President (2013-2014), Executive President (2009 to April 2013); Co-Chair (2005-2009); Chairman of the Legal Commission on banking regulation (2003-2005); and Coordinator of the Legal Committee (1995-1998). He is an active member at the Assembly of the Latin American Federation of Banks (Felaban) where he served as Second Vice Chair from 2010 to 2012. He is also Chairman of the Legal Committee at the Business Coordinating Council (CCE).

Because of his long career, leadership and experience in the banking sector, Luis Robles is a member of several Boards of Directors representing mexican and foreign financial institutions. Convinced that banking sector plays a key role for economic growth and development, Luis Robles is also recognized for its active role to promote and encourage greater access to credit and financial services.

Ambassador & Mrs. Joseph D. Stafford, III

Ambassador Joseph D. Stafford, III was a career Foreign Service Officer with the State Department, who assumed the position of Charge’ d’ Affaires, (Defacto Ambassador)  at the Embassy of the United States Khartoum, Sudan before he retired in February of this year. He may be best known from ARGO, the Oscar winning film by Ben Affleck about his escape from Iran after the 1979 takeover of the American Embassy.  Read more »

Ambassador Stafford and his wife, Kathleen, were among the six diplomats who evaded capture during the Iranian Hostage Crisis, eventually being smuggled out of Iran by the CIA.

Previously he  served as: Consul General in  Lagos, Nigeria; Anti-Corruption Coordinator in Baghdad, Iraq; Ambassador to the Republic of The Gambia in West Africa; Deputy Chief of Mission  in Cote d’Ivoire, Tunisia, Algeria and Mauritania. In Washington, his assignments included teaching on the faculty of the National War College and serving as the State Department’s Deputy Director of Maghreb Affairs (North Africa).  He was also the Political Analyst for the Arabian Peninsula in the State Department’s Office of Intelligence and Research. His earlier assignments were to Algeria, Kuwait, Egypt, Italy, and Tehran.

He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees and is fluent in  Arabic, French, and Italian.     He has received the State Department’s Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards as well as the Award for Valor.

Kathleen Stafford is a watercolor artist and printmaker. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art with post graduate study in Rome, and Palermo Italy, and later earned a Master’s degree in elementary education.  Along with overseeing representational activities and managing staff at their official residences, Kathleen has taught workshops on watercolor and printmaking, collaborated with other artists and held exhibitions of her work in all of the countries where she has accompanied her husband.  She has also held solo exhibitions in Alexandria, Virginia during times she was evacuated from post. Her paintings and prints can be found in museums and private collections around the world including the shop at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.

Ambassador Elin Suleymanov

In October of 2011, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev appointed Elin Suleymanov as Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to the United States of America. Prior to that, for over five years, Mr. Suleymanov had been the nation’s first Consul General to Los Angeles and the Western States leading the team, which established Azerbaijani diplomatic presence on the West Coast. Read more »

Earlier, he served as Senior Counselor at the Foreign Relations Department, Office of the President in Baku, Azerbaijan and as Press Officer of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Washington, DC. Mr. Suleymanov’s experience before joining diplomatic service includes working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Azerbaijan, as well as with the Open Media Research Institute in Prague, Czech Republic, and Glaverbel Czech, a leading manufacturing company in East-Central Europe.

A graduate of Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Mr. Suleymanov also holds graduate degrees from the Political Geography department of the Moscow State University, Russia, and from the University of Toledo, Ohio. Mr. Suleymanov has authored numerous articles and is a frequent presenter at academic events. He speaks Azerbaijani, English and Russian languages.

Dr. Jeremi Suri

Dr. Jeremi Suri has a joint appointment in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and the University of Texas at Austin Department of History. He has received numerous awards for his research and teaching, and Smithsonian Magazine named him one of America’s “Top Young Innovators” in the Arts and Sciences in 2007. Read more »

He is the author of four books, including the widely acclaimed biography of one of America’s most distinguished diplomats, Henry Kissinger and the American Century.

His book, Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from Washington to Obama, was the Free Press/ Simon and Schuster’s lead non-fiction release in the fall of 2011. Suri earned his B.A. in history from Stanford University in 1994 and an M.A. in history from Ohio University in 1996. He then earned his PhD from Yale University in 2001. Professor Suri blogs on foreign policy and contemporary politics at http://globalbrief.ca. His research interests include the formation and spread of nation-states; the emergence of modern international relations; the connections between foreign policy and domestic politics; the rise of knowledge of institutions as global actors; contemporary foreign policy; international security; protest and dissident movements, and globalization.

Dr. Julia Sweig

Dr. Julia Sweig is the former Senior Fellow for Latin America at the Council on Foreign Relations, Expert on Cuba. Her scholarship and policy innovation on Cuba helped lay the groundwork for President Obama’s current policy initiative.  Read more »

She is the award-winning author of several books, including “Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know,” and “Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground.” She has also authored numerous other publications and policy reports on Cuba, U.S.-Cuban relations, Brazil as an emerging global player, Latin America and American foreign policy.

Mr. Reggie Thompson

Reggie Thompson serves as a Latin America analyst, focusing on political and security developments in Latin American and Caribbean at Stratfor. Particular areas of concentration include, Latin American drug trafficking and security issues, along with Venezuelan and Mexico domestic and foreign policy relations. Read more »

 Mr. Thompson studied political science and communication at Trinity University and holds a master’s degree in international affairs from Texas A&M University. Additionally, he is a native speaker of Spanish and English. He has lived and worked in Honduras and the United States, including as a reporter for a Texas-based publication prior to joining Stratfor.

 

Congressman Javier Treviño

Javier Treviño is a Member of Mexico’s Congress (Diputado Federal, State of Nuevo León, Institutional Revolutionary Party – PRI). He serves as secretary of the Energy Committee and of the Finance Committee, and he is a member of the Migratory Affairs Committee and of the Special Committee on Information and Communication Technologies.  Read more »

Before being elected to Congress, Mr. Treviño served as Secretary of Governance (Lieutenant Governor) in the State of Nuevo León (2009-2012), and he held several high-ranking positions in the Mexican Federal Government, including Deputy Finance Minister for Administration (1998-2000), Deputy Foreign Minister (1994-1998), and Minister for Public Affairs and Spokesman at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C. (1989-1993), during the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations.

In the private sector, Mr. Treviño served as Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications and Public Affairs of CEMEX, a global building materials company with operations in over 50 countries (2001-2009). He is a frequent collaborator of national newspapers, including Milenio Daily and Reforma, where he writes about Mexican politics and international affairs, as well as a commentator in TV and radio shows. He has served as Vice President of the Mexican Council on International Affairs (Comexi), and he has been a member of the board of the Institute of the Americas, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute, the OAS’ Trust for the Americas, the North American Center at Arizona State University, and of the Trust of El Colegio de México, a leading Mexican university and think tank.

Mr. Treviño holds a BA in International Relations from El Colegio de México, and a Master in Public Policy degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He divides his time between Mexico City and his native city of Monterrey, Nuevo León.

Ambassador Chase Untermeyer

Chase Untermeyer has been an international business consultant since returning in 2007 from Qatar, where he served three years as United States ambassador on appointment of President George W. Bush.

Ambassador Untermeyer has held both elected and appointed office at all four levels of government – local, state, national, and international – over a 40- year period, with work in journalism, academia, and business as well. Read more »

He is a 1968 graduate of Harvard College with honors in government. During the Vietnam War he served as an officer in the United States Navy aboard a destroyer in the Western Pacific and as aide to the commander of US naval forces in the Philippines.

Upon his return to Texas, Ambassador Untermeyer was a political reporter for the Houston Chronicle for three years before becoming executive assistant to the county judge (chief administrative official) of Harris County, Texas, the jurisdiction surrounding Houston. In 1976, he was elected to the first of two terms as a member of the Texas House of Representatives.

He left the Legislature in 1981 to go to Washington as executive assistant to then-Vice President Bush. Three years later, President Reagan appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower & Reserve Affairs. When George Bush became president in 1989, Mr. Untermeyer returned to the White House as Director of Presidential Personnel, responsible for advising the President on his appointments to federal office. In 1991, President Bush appointed him Director of the Voice of America, the overseas broadcasting arm of the US government, where he served until the end of the Administration in 1993.

Back in Houston, he was director of public affairs for Compaq Computer Corporation (since merged with Hewlett Packard) and vice president for government affairs and professor of public policy at the University of Texas Health Science Center.

Ambassador Untermeyer is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and is currently chairman of the Texas Ethics Commission. He also chairs the advisory board of The Soufan Group, which provides strategic security intelligence services to governments and multinational organizations.

In previous part-time public service, he has been member and chairman of the Board of Visitors of the US Naval Academy, a commissioner of the Port of Houston, president of the Houston READ Commission, a member of the board of National Public Radio, member of the Defense Health Board, a founding member of the board of the Episcopal Health Foundation, and chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, appointed by then-Governor George W. Bush.

He is married to the former Diana Cumming Kendrick of Sheridan, Wyoming, whom he met when they were both on the White House staff. Their daughter, Elly, is a student at Stanford University.

Texas A&M University Press has published three volumes of Ambassador Untermeyer’s memoirs of the Reagan and first Bush administrations: When Things Went Right (2013), Inside Reagan’s Navy (2015), and Zenith (2016). Bright Sky Press has published his How Important People Act: Behaving Yourself in Public (2015).

Dr. Yanis Varoufakis

Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who previously held the position of Professor of Economics at the University of Athens, Visiting Professor at the University of Texas, and Economist-in-residence for Valve Corporation, is the author of The Global Minotaur. Read more »

Born in Athens, 1961, Varoufakis completed his secondary education in Greece before moving to England where he read mathematics and economics at the Universities of Essex and Birmingham.
He has taught at various British Universities (Essex, East Anglia, Cambridge, Glasgow), and spent twelve years teaching at the University of Sydney (Australia). Recently, he has emerged as an active participant in the debates over the Global, European and Greek Crises as well as a co-founder of www.vitalspace.org.

Larry Wright

Lawrence Wright is an author, screenwriter, playwright, and a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. He is a graduate of Tulane University, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the American University in Cairo, where he taught English and received an M.A. in Applied Linguistics in 1969. Read more »

Upon his return to the U.S. in 1971, Wright began his writing career at the Race Relations Reporter in Nashville, Tennessee. Two years later, he went to work for Southern Voices, a publication of the Southern Regional Council in Atlanta, Georgia, and began to freelance for various national magazines. In 1980, Wright returned to Texas to work for Texas Monthly. He also became a contributing editor to Rolling Stone. In December 1992, he joined the staff of The New Yorker, where he has published a number of prize-winning articles, including two National Magazine Awards.

Wright is the co-writer (with director Ed Zwick and Menno Meyjes) of The Siege, starring Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis, and Annette Bening, which appeared in November 1998. He also wrote the script of the Showtime movie, Noriega: God’s Favorite, directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Bob Hoskins, which aired in April 2000.

Wright is the author of one novel, God’s Favorite (Simon & Schuster, 2000) and eight nonfiction books, including City Children, Country Summer (Scribner’s, 1979), In the New World: Growing Up with America, 1960-1984 (Knopf, 1988), Saints & Sinners (Knopf, 1993),Remembering Satan (Knopf, 1994), and Twins; Genes, Environment, and the Mystery of Identity(Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1997). The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Knopf, 2006), was published to immediate and widespread acclaim, spending eight weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and being translated into twenty-five languages. It won the Lionel Gelber Award for Nonfiction, the Los Angeles Times Award for History, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Time Magazine pronounced it one of the 100 best nonfiction books ever written. Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (Knopf, 2013), also a New York Times bestseller, was nominated for the National Book Award and won the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. His most recent book, Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David, was published in the fall of 2014, and was named by Publisher’s Weekly as one of the top ten books of the year.

In 2006, Wright premiered his one-man play, “My Trip to Al-Qaeda,” at The New Yorker Festival, and then enjoyed a sold-out six-week run at the Culture Project in Soho. It was made into a documentary film, directed by Academy Award-winner Alex Gibney, which appeared on HBO in the fall of 2010. Wright also wrote and performed another one-man show, “The Human Scale,” concerning the standoff between Israel and Hamas over the abduction of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. The Public Theater produced the play, which ran for a month off-Broadway in 2010 before moving to the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv.

In the spring of 2013, the Berkeley Repertory Theater produced Wright’s play about Oriana Fallaci, “Fallaci,” directed by Oskar Eustis. A year later, the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., premiered Wright’s acclaimed play “Camp David,” about the Carter-Begin-Sadat summit.

Wright co-produced a documentary based on his book, Going Clear, which was released in 2015 and won three Emmys: for writing, directing, and best documentary.

Wright is currently writing a series for HBO set in the world of Texas politics, God Save Texas. Wright is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Society of American Historians. He also serves as the keyboard player in the Austin-based blues band, WhoDo.

Mr. Mark Wynne

Mark Wynne is a vice president, associate director of Research and director of the Bank’s Globalization and Monetary Policy Institute at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. In the latter role, Wynne is responsible for developing and leading the Bank’s research program on globalization and understanding its implications for the conduct of U.S. monetary policy. Read more »

Since joining the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in 1989, he has had a variety of responsibilities, including briefing the Bank’s president on national and international economic conditions prior to meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee, providing updates on key economic issues to the Bank’s board of directors and conducting research on the effects of fiscal policy, understanding business cycles, inflation measurement and the workings of monetary unions, among other topics. His research has appeared in many of the leading peer-reviewed academic journals and Federal Reserve publications.

Wynne has taught at both the undergraduate and graduate level at University College Dublin, the University of Rochester and Southern Methodist University and has also served as a faculty member for the American Bankers Association Stonier Graduate School of Banking.

Most of his professional career has been at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, but Wynne also spent time at the European Monetary Institute and European Central Bank during the formative years of European Economic and Monetary Union, where he worked on issues related to the strategy of monetary policy under EMU. He has also been an occasional consultant to the ECB and International Monetary Fund.
He earned first-class-honors BA and MA degrees from the National University of Ireland–University College, Dublin, and holds MA and PhD degrees in economics from the University of Rochester.

He Yafei

Ambassador He Yafei (Ambassador He is pronounced like “Who”) is an experienced Chinese  diplomat who was Deputy Director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council. Moreover, he was Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, representing the People’s Republic of China during the negotiations of the Copenhagen Accord in December 2009. Read more »

His responsibilities also included: North America and Oceania, international organizations and conferences, arms control, protocol, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan- related foreign affairs.

He began his career as an interpreter at the Department for General Assembly and Conference Management at the UN Headquarters in 1981. Ambassador He was born in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province in March 1955, educated at the Hangzhou University as well as the Beijing Foreign Studies University in China and holds a Master from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

Photos from Past Events

Valerie Hudson

General Robert B. Neller

Admiral Bobby Inman

Fred Burton – What’s Next with Iran??

Katherine Tobin

Ildefonso Guajardo

Ambassador Larry E. André, Jr.

Dr. Arthur Ding

Ambassador Tony Garza with James Taylor

Rob Gardner

Alexis Andres

Dr. Jeremi Suri

Dr. George Friedman

He Yafei

Pedro Morenés Eulate

Chancellor William McRaven

János Csák and Gergely Böszörményi-Nagy

Bill Brands

Ambassador Jonathan Addleton

Chase Untermeyer

Ambassador Lewis Lucke

  • Lewis Lucke

  • Lewis Lucke

Matthew Dowd

  • Matthew Dowd, James Taylor

  • Darren Woody, Jodie Ferguson

  • Tom Terkel, Blaine Bull

  • Joe Duran, Steve Allen, John Mobley, Terry Tottenham

Magistrate Manuel González Oropeza

  • Carlos González Gutiérrez, Adrian Farrell, Manuel González Oropeza

  • Ed McIlhenny and Jack Gray

  • Bud Shivers, Pam McIlhenny

  • Manuel González Oropeza, Carols González Gutiérrez, Tim Taylor

Secretary Manpreet Anand

  • Pam Willeford and Manpreet Anand

  • Chris Harte, Tom Granger, Manpreet Anand, Andrew Maebius

  • Charles Granger, Manpreet Anand, Jack Gray

Robert Chesney and William Inboden

  • Robert Chesney and Tom Granger

  • Adrian Farrell and Tim Taylor

  • Ben Turner, Terry Tottenham and Bill Powers

Ambassador Cameron Munter

  • Nancy Inman, Cameron Munter and Penne Peacock

  • Mike Maples and Cameron Munter

  • Cameron Munter, Carlos González Gutiérrez and Tim Taylor

David J. Firestein

  • David Firestein and Jodie Ferguson

  • David Firestein

  • Blaine Bull, David Firestein and Bob Campbell

Larry Wright

  • Darren Woody with Adrian Farrell

  • Bob Campbell, Larry Wright and Will Wynn

  • Ben Turner and Carlos González Gutiérrez

Chairman Michael McCaul

  • Andrew Peacock, Tom Granger, Pam McIlhenny, Edmund McIlhenny, and Kerry Cammack

  • Chairman McCaul and Tim Taylor

  • Adrian Farrell and Carlos González Gutiérrez

  • Will Wynn, Chairman McCaul, Lewis Lucke and Susan Combs

Mr. Luis Robles Miaja

  • Ben Turner, Joe Petet, Juis Robles Miaja

  • Penne Peacock and Luis Niño de Rivera Lajous

  • Meredith Friedman and

  • Luis Robles Miaja and George Friedman

  • Luis Robles Miaja

  • James Taylor, Steve Clark and David Armbrust

Ambassador Elin Suleymanov

  • George Friedman, Elin Suleymanov and Kerry Cammack

  • Elin Suleymanov with Meredith and George Friedman

  • Edmund McIlhenny with Bud Shivers

  • Blaine Bull with Pam McIlhenny

Consul General Adrian Farrell

  • Tom Granger and Ben Turner

  • Adrian Farrell, Ed Walts and Tim Taylor

  • Lewis Lucke, Adrian Farrell and Tom Granger

Robert Hutchings & Jeremi Suri

Ambassador Cameron Munter

  • Andrew Peacock, Jack Gray, Tom Terkel and Brian Greig

  • Carlos González Gutiérrez, Bob Hutchings and Cameron Munter

  • Bob Hutchings and Cameron Munter

  • Tom Granger, Cameron Munter and Bob Campbell

Secretary José Antonio Meade Kuribreña

  • Carlos González Gutiérrez, James Taylor, José Antonio Meade Kuribreña, and Tony Garza

  • Mayor Steve Adler presents the Keys to the City to Secretary Meade

  • Tony Garza and Randa Safady

Ambassador Jim McLay

  • George Friedman and Andrew Peacock

  • Lewis Lucke and Edmund McIlhenny

  • (l to r) Geoff Connor, Ambassador Jim McLay, Marcy, Meredith Friedman, George Friedman

  • Jim McLay, Marcy McLay, Andrew Peacock

Ambassador Ramón Gil-Casares Satrústegui

  • George Friedman and Eduardo Margain

  • Lewis Lucke, Meredith Friedman, Ramón Gil-Casares and Brian Greig

  • Ramón Gil-Casares and Pam Willeford

  • James Taylor, Enric Panés, Ramón Gil-Casares and Raul Rodriguez

General Harry D. Raduege

  • Tim Taylor and Lewis Lucke

  • Joe Duran, Susan Combs, Jack Gray and Harry Raduege

  • Lewis Lucke and Joe Stafford

  • Bob Campbell and Harry Raduege

Dr. Julia Sweig

  • Bob Hutchings and Julia Sweig

  • Julia Sweig

Ambassador Lewis Lucke

  • Robert Hutchings

  • Dillon Ferguson, Lewis Lucke, Joe Stafford

  • Kathleen Stafford, Lewis Lucke, Joe Stafford

Engagement versus Isolation: the U.S. and Cuba at a Crossroads

  • Meredith Friedman, Will Wynn and Carolyn Lewis

  • Speakers: Bob Hutchings, Reva Bhalla & Reggie Thompson

  • Reggie Thompson, Joe Duran and Susan Combs, & Reva Bhalla

Ambassador Joseph D. Stafford, III

  • Kathleen and Joe Stafford

  • Pam Willeford and Nancy Inman

  • Jeremi Suri, Tom Granger, Nancy Inman, and Tim Taylor

Brigadier Tim Lai

  • Jack Gray, Tim Lai, Tom Granger

  • Geoff Connor, Tim Lai, Tom Granger

Major General Meir Dagan

  • Andrew Peacock with Meir Dagan

  • Bob Hutchings, Meir Dagan and Tim Taylor

  • Kerry Cammack, Meir Dagan, Steve Kornguth and Steve Clark

Admiral Bob Inman

  • Admiral Bob Inman and Kerry Cammack

  • Judge Sam Sparks with Nancy and Bob Inman

Dr. Russell A. Green

  • Tom Granger with Russell Green

  • Bob Hutchings, Franklin Hall and Will Wynn

Mr. Nathaniel Karp

  • Ben Turner and Nathaniel Karp

  • Lewis Lucke, Nathaniel Karp and Ben Turner

Ambassador Henry Crumpton

  • Ambassador Henry Crumpton

  • Ambassadors: Pam Willeford, Lewis Lucke, Henry Crumpton

  • Henry Crumpton and Bob Campbell

Andrew Natsios

  • Jeremi Suri and Rosalba Ojeda

  • Bob Inman and John Mobley

  • Andrew and Elizabeth Natsios

  • Robert Hutchings, Andrew Natsios and Tim Taylor

  • Andrew Natsios

  • Ann Willeford, Lewis Lucke, Andrew Natsios and Joy Lucke

John Mroz – A World in Rapid Change: A Global Insiders Perspective on 2014

  • John Mroz

  • Tom Granger, Pam Willeford, John Mroz

  • Bob Campbell and Jack Gray

  • (l to r) Lewis Lucke, Darren Woody, Austin Woody, Penne Peacock, Pam Willeford

  • Penne Peacock and Pam Willeford

  • John Mroz and Meredith Friedman

Dr. Phil Levy

  • Lewis Lucke and Phil Levy

  • Brian Greig

  • Carolyn Lewis

  • Randa Safady and Brian Greig

  • Phil Levy

Michele Ferenz and Dr. Rabi Mohtar

  • Dr. Rabi Mohtar

  • Rabi Mohtar, Michele Ferenz and Lewis Lucke

  • Jack Gray

Congressman Javier Treviño

  • Beatriz Noriega, Congressman Javier Treviño, Ambassador Rosalba Ojeda

  • Will Wynn

  • Javier Treviño

  • Tom Granger, Jack Gray, Will Wynn

  • Javier Treviño and Rosalba Ojeda

  • Eduardo Margain, Javier Treviño and James Taylor

  • Eduardo Margain, Ambassador Lewis Lucke and Congressman Javier Treviño

Mark Wynne

  • Jeremi Suri

  • Pam McIlhenny, Bob Campbell and Mark Wynne

  • Mark Wynne

  • Tom Granger, Duff Stewart, Mark Wynne and Ben Turner

Ambassador Andrew Peacock

  • Bob Inman and Andrew Peacock

  • Geoff Connor

  • Bob Hutchings and Pam McIlhenny

  • Nancy Inman and Andrew Peacock

  • Andrew Peacock and Meredith Friedman

  • Tom Granger, Bud Shivers, Andrew Peacock, and Dillon Ferguson

Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo

  • James Taylor, Alejandro Ruelas, Secretary Guajardo, Rosalba Ojeda and Luis Patino

  • Arnold Garcia, Tom Granger, Secretary Guajardo, Rosalba Ojeda and Tim Taylor

  • George Friedman and Secretary Guajardo

  • Bud Shivers, Will Wynn, Gregory Fenves

Senator Dick Lugar

  • l to r: Senator Dick Lugar, Ambassador Andrew Peacock, Ben Turner, Jack Gray

  • Senator Dick Lugar and Dr. Jeremi Suri

  • Nancy Inman with Senator Dick Lugar (center) and Admiral Bob Inman

  • l to r: Tom Granger, Ben Turner, Geoff Connor, Senator Dick Lugar, Ambassador Lewis Lucke, Ambassador Rosalba Ojeda

  • l to r: Ambassador Pam Willeford, Elizabeth Christian, Ambassador Rosalba Ojeda

  • l to r: Tom Granger, Admiral Bob Inman, Senator Dick Lugar

Ambassador Tony Garza

  • l to r: Ambassador Tony Garza, Ambassadors Penne and Andrew Peacock, Tom Granger

  • l to r: James Taylor and Eduardo Margain

  • Ambassadors Tony Garza and Pam Willeford

  • Ambassador Bob Hutchings and Nancy Inman

Congressman Michael McCaul

  • l to r: Tim Taylor, Michael McCaul, Rosalba Ojeda, Tom Granger

Karen Elliott House

  • Admiral Bob Inman and Karen Elliott House

Ambassador Nabil Fahmy

  • l to r: Ambassadors Nabil Fahmy, Lewis Lucke, & Pam Willeford

  • l to r:Ambassador Lewis Lucke, Ambassador Rosalba Ojeda, Ambassador Bob Hutchings, Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy, Tim Taylor

  • l to r: Hector Ruiz, Will Wynn

Vice Chancellor Joschka Fischer

  • l to r: Jack Gray, Bob Campbell

  • l to r: Ambassador Rosalba Ojeda, Ambassador Bob Hutchings, Vice Chancellor Joschka Fischer

  • Bill Brands and Geoff Connor