# David Rothkopf

David J. Rothkopf (born December 24, 1955) is an American foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator. He is the founder and CEO of TRG Media and The Rothkopf Group, a columnist for The Daily Beast and a former member of the USA Today Board of Contributors. He is the author of ten books including Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power, National Insecurity: American Leadership in an Age of Fear, and most recently, Traitor: A History of American Betrayal from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump. He is also the podcast host of Deep State Radio. Rothkopf also serves as a registered foreign agent of the United Arab Emirates.

## Early life and education

Rothkopf was born in Urbana, Illinois, to a Jewish family. His father escaped the Holocaust while three dozen of his relatives did not. Rothkopf, who grew up in New Jersey, is a 1977 graduate of Columbia College and attended Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has two daughters, Joanna and Laura Rothkopf. He is married to Carla Dirlikov Canales, an opera singer, a US State Department cultural envoy, and a professor of practice at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

## Career

Rothkopf served as a senior executive and editor at Institutional Investor, Inc. and served in a similar capacity at Financial World magazine.
Later, Rothkopf co-founded and served as chairman and chief executive of International Media Partners, Inc., which published CEO magazine and Emerging Markets newspaper and organized the CEO Institutes.
In 1993, he joined the Clinton administration as Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Policy and Development. Rothkopf later served as Acting U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, directing the 2,400 employees of the International Trade Administration including the U.S. Commercial Service, the International Economic Policy Bureau, the Bureau of Import Administration, and the Bureau of Trade Development.
He left government service and became managing director of Kissinger Associates, the international advisory firm founded and chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.
In 1999, he co-founded and served as chairman and CEO of Intellibridge Corporation, a provider of international analysis and open-source intelligence for the U.S. national security community and selected investors, financial organizations and other corporations.
He was a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for almost two decades, where he chaired the Carnegie Economic Strategy Roundtable. He was also chairman of the National Strategic Investment Forum Dialogue, a forum convening leading institutional investors for discussions about critical issues of investment strategy. In addition, Rothkopf served as a member of the advisory boards of the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Johns Hopkins/Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Center for Global Development, and the Center for the Study of the Presidency.
Later, he co-founded and served as president and CEO of Garten Rothkopf, an international advisory firm specializing in transformational global trends, notably those associated with energy, security, and emerging Markets.
In 2012, he was named CEO of the FP Group and editor at large of its Foreign Policy magazine, ForeignPolicy.com, and FP Events. He subsequently became Editor-in-Chief of the company and served until May 2017.
Following his work at Foreign Policy, Rothkopf founded the Rothkopf Group and TRG Media which produce a number of podcasts include Deep State Radio, which is hosted by Rothkopf, Words Matter, Next in Foreign Policy, the DSR Daily Brief and the Secret Life of Cookies. The company also provides podcast and event production services focused on foreign policy, politics, culture, technology, the environment, and women's rights including for companies and for foreign governments such as the United Arab Emirates.
Rothkopf is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and has taught international affairs at Columbia University's Graduate School of International and Public Affairs, the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, and he has lectured at leading universities including Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, the National Defense University and the Naval War College.