(virtual participant)

Dr. Kurt Campbell serves as Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs on the National Security Council. He was previously Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Asia Group, LLC, a strategic advisory and capital management group.  From 2009 to 2013, Dr. Campbell served as the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, where he is widely credited as being a key architect of the “pivot to Asia.” For advancing a comprehensive U.S. strategy that took him to every corner of the Asia-Pacific region, Secretary Hillary Clinton awarded him the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award (2013)—the nation’s highest diplomatic honor. He was formerly the CEO and co-Founder of the Center for a New American Security and concurrently served as the director of the Aspen Strategy Group and Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Washington Quarterly. He is the author or editor of ten books including Difficult Transitions: Why Presidents Fail in Foreign Policy at the Outset of Power and Hard Power: The New Politics of National Security. He received his BA from the UC San Diego and his doctorate in international relations from Brasenose College at Oxford University.