- Office Home
- About Us
- Key Topics
- Foreign Affairs Policy Board
- Remarks and Releases

HomePolicy Planning Staff...Foreign Affairs Policy Board

# 									Foreign Affairs Policy Board							

Policy Planning Staff

The Foreign Affairs Policy Board was launched in December 2011 to provide the Secretary of State, the Deputy Secretaries of State, and the Director of Policy Planning with independent, informed advice and opinion concerning matters of U.S. foreign policy. The Board serves in a solely advisory capacity, with an agenda shaped by the questions and concerns of the Secretary. Its discussions focus on assessing global threats and opportunities; identifying trends that implicate core national security interests; providing recommendations with respect to tools and capacities of the civilian foreign affairs agencies; defining priorities and strategic frameworks for U.S. foreign policy; and performing any other research and analysis of topics raised by the Secretary of State, the Deputy Secretaries, and the Director of Policy Planning.

The Board meets in a plenary session several times a year and is chartered to have up to 25 members. The Board comprises a distinguished, diverse, and bipartisan membership with a wide range of expertise and background, including past government service, academia, politics, development, and business.

## Co-Chairs

**Thomas Donilon**

Thomas E. Donilon is Chairman of the BlackRock Investment Institute. He served as National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama. In that capacity Mr. Donilon oversaw the U.S. National Security Council staff, chaired the cabinet level National Security Principals Committee, provided the president’s daily national security briefing, and was responsible for the coordination and integration of the administration’s foreign policy, intelligence, and military efforts. Mr. Donilon also oversaw the White House’s cybersecurity and international energy efforts and served as the President’s personal emissary to a number of world leaders. Mr. Donilon has worked with and advised three U.S. presidents.

**Cecilia Muñoz**

Cecilia Muñoz is a national leader in public policy and public interest technology with nearly three decades of experience in the non-profit sector and government. She was the first Latina to lead the White House Domestic Policy Council, serving 8 years on President Obama’s senior team. She led the domestic and economic policy team for the Biden/Harris presidential transition and serves as a senior advisor to New America in Washington, DC. An internationally recognized expert on immigration policy, in 2021, she co-founded Welcome.US, an organization that mobilizes civil society to support the resettlement of Afghan evacuees and other newcomers to the United States. Cecilia started her career at the National Council of La Raza (now UNIDOS US), the nation’s largest Hispanic policy and advocacy organization, where she spent 20 years focused on immigration, civil rights, education, and a broad range of policy concerns.

## Members

**David Autor**

David Autor is Ford Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, Vice President of the American Economic Association, codirector of the NBER Labor Studies Program and the JPAL Work of the Future experimental initiative. His scholarship explores the labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization on job polarization, skill demands, earnings levels and inequality, and electoral outcomes. Autor has received numerous awards for both his scholarship—the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Sherwin Rosen Prize for outstanding contributions to the field of Labor Economics, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in 2019, the Society for Progress Medal in 2021—and for his teaching, including the MIT MacVicar Faculty Fellowship. In a 2019 article, the Economist magazine labeled him as “The academic voice of the American worker.”

**Dr. Sameer Bhalotra**

Dr. Sameer Bhalotra is the Co-founder & CEO of ActZero, a security company based in Menlo Park, California. He previously worked in cybersecurity at Google and as a Board member of numerous security startups. In government, he served as Senior Director for Cybersecurity on the National Security Council staff at the White House, Cybersecurity & Technology Lead for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and in various roles in the Intelligence Community. He is affiliated with the US Secret Service Cyber Investigations Advisory Board, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

**Dr. Hal Brands**

Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. Brands is the author or co-author of numerous books, most recently, The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order (2019), The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us About Great-Power Rivalry Today (2022), and Danger Zone: The Coming Crisis with China (2022). Hal has also served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Strategic Planning from 2015 to 2016, as lead writer for the Commission on the National Defense Strategy for the United States, and has consulted with a range of government offices and agencies.

**Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar**

Tino Cuéllar is the tenth president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A former justice of the Supreme Court of California, he served two U.S. presidents at the White House and in federal agencies and was a faculty member at Stanford University for two decades. During nearly seven years on California’s highest court, he wrote opinions addressing separation of powers, federalism, policing and criminal justice, democracy, technology and privacy, and climate and environmental policy among other issues, and led the court system’s efforts to better meet the needs of millions of limited English speakers.

**Janine Davidson, Ph.D**

Janine Davidson, Ph.D. is president of Metropolitan State University of Denver, Colorado’s third largest and most diverse public university. Davidson is a national thought leader in higher education and on topics such as public service, U.S. foreign policy and national security. Dr. Davidson served in various senior civilian Pentagon positions, most recently as the 32nd undersecretary of the U.S. Navy. Previously she served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Plans and was also a senior civil servant in the stability operations office in the office of the Secretary of Defense. Davidson began her career as an Air Force officer and cargo pilot. She was a distinguished graduate of the Air Force Squadron Officer School and was the first woman to fly the Air Force’s tactical C-130.

**Cathy Feingold**

Cathy Feingold is a leading advocate on foreign policy centered in the priorities of working people and their families. She brings more than 20 years of experience in trade and global economic policy, and worker, human and women’s rights issues. As director of the AFL-CIO’s International Department, she represents over 12.5 million workers and is a committed and passionate advocate, strategic campaigner and policy expert. In 2018, Feingold was elected Deputy President of the International Trade Union Confederation, the organization representing 200 million unionized workers worldwide and headquartered in Belgium, Brussels and she is a member of the Trade Union Advisory Committee at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

**Margaret A. Hamburg, MD**

Dr. Margaret Hamburg is an internationally recognized leader in public health and medicine, who currently serves as chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s Bio Advisory Group. She previously served as foreign secretary of the National Academy of Medicine and is a former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), having served for almost six years. Before joining FDA, Hamburg was founding vice president and senior scientist at the Nuclear Threat Initiative. Previous government positions include Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Commissioner for New York City, and Assistant Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health.

**Jon M. Huntsman, Jr.**

Jon Huntsman currently serves as Vice Chair of Ford Motor Company. He has spent considerable time in public service at the state, national, and international levels. Huntsman began his career in public service as a staff assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He has served each of the five U.S. presidents since then in critical roles around the world, including as U.S. Ambassador to Singapore, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Asia, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, U.S. Ambassador to China, and most recently, U.S. Ambassador to Russia. Huntsman is the only American in history to have served as Chief of Mission in both China and Russia. In all four Senate confirmations, he received unanimous votes.

**Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson**

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, writer, and Brooklyn native. She is co-founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities. She co-edited the bestselling climate anthology All We Can Save, co-founded The All We Can Save Project, and co-created the Spotify/Gimlet climate solutions podcast How to Save a Planet. Recently, she co-authored the Blue New Deal, a roadmap for including the ocean in climate policy. Previously, she was executive director of the Waitt Institute, developed policy at the Environmental Protection Agency and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and taught as an adjunct professor at New York University.

**Ambassador Kristie A. Kenney**

Ambassador Kristie Kenney holds the U.S. State Department’s highest rank of Career Ambassador. Over the course of her 35+-year career at the State Department, she represented the United States abroad as Ambassador three times and served in senior positions at the State Department and the National Security Council, including service as the 32nd Counselor of the State Department. As Ambassador to Thailand, Ambassador Kenney led U.S. assistance during Thailand’s devastating 2011 floods and managed the response to the 2014 military coup. She was the first female to head U.S. Embassy Bangkok, one of the United States’ largest diplomatic missions with over 3,000 staff. She is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, teaching courses on leadership and public speaking.

**Gilman G. Louie**

Gilman Louie is CEO and co-founder of America’s Frontier Fund, where he is responsible for the vision and leadership of the organization. Louie brings over 30 years of national security and investment experience. He served as an early CEO of In-Q-Tel—the pioneering technology investment firm funded by the Central Intelligence Agency—from 1999-2006, as an expert and Special Government Employee to the Defense Innovation Board from 2016-2020, and as a Commissioner on the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence from 2018-2021.

**Dr. James M. Manyika**

Dr. James Manyika is Senior Vice President at Google-Alphabet and a member of the senior leadership team where he focuses on Technology & Society on areas ranging from AI, computing infrastructure, to the future of work, the digital economy and sustainability that have potential for broad impact on society. He is Senior Partner emeritus of McKinsey & Company, and is Chair and director emeritus of the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). At Mckinsey, he advised the chief executives of many of the world’s leading companies on technology and business strategies, and he led MGI’s research on technology, the economy, competitiveness, and other global economy trends.

**Dr. Meghan L. O’Sullivan**

Meghan L. O’Sullivan is an educator, writer, former policymaker and diplomat, and advisor to companies. Throughout her career, she has been dedicated to resolving conflict and understanding the intersection of energy and geopolitics. Meghan has sought to help rebuild countries and craft constitutions and other frameworks for governing divided societies through her past positions, including two years in Iraq, as special assistant to President George W. Bush and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan, and as a Vice Chair of the All Party peace negotiations in Northern Ireland in 2013.

**Annise D. Parker**

The Honorable Annise Parker served the people of Houston with three terms as City Council member, three terms as City Controller, and three terms as Mayor. She is the only person in Houston history to have held all three offices. She was the first openly LGBT mayor of a major American city. Mayor Parker is currently President and CEO of The Victory Fund and Victory Institute. She served on President Obama’s State, Local and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, on the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, as a steering committee member of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, and on the board of the Texas Environmental Research Consortium.

**Ricardo Zuniga**

Ricardo Zuniga is a Founding Partner of Dinámica Americas, an advisory firm focused on the Western Hemisphere. He was a career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service, serving for 30 years in multiple roles, including as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, U.S. Special Envoy for the Northern Triangle, and U.S. Consul General in São Paulo, Brazil, where he focused on advancing U.S. commercial relations with Brazil. Zuniga was detailed by the State Department to serve as President Obama’s principal advisor for the Americas from 2012 to 2015. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Latin America Program and the Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute and serves as a Senior Advisor at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and served diplomatic tours in Mexico, Portugal, Cuba, Spain, and Brazil.

## FAPB Meetings

        - Foreign Affairs Policy Board Meeting Notice; Closed Meeting  October 12, 2022   **Federal Register Notice**
        - Foreign Affairs Policy Board Meeting Notice; Closed Meeting  April 25, 2023   Federal Register Notice   Official Minutes [188 KB]

## FAPB Charter

Download PDF [125 KB]

Tags

Policy Planning Staff

Back to Top