Drew Peterson

Drew Peterson is a policy practitioner with expertise at the intersection of diplomacy, strategy, national security, foreign investment, and emerging technologies. As the Applied Research Institute Fellow at KITDP and a member of the Advisory Council, he builds international partnerships in support of trusted technology network models and other strategic priorities. He concurrently serves as director of geopolitical and regulatory risk at 2430 Group, an operational nonprofit that defends America’s critical technologies, infrastructure, intellectual property, and data from industrial espionage. He is an adjunct instructor at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and a senior consultant to the National Strategic Research Institute at the University of Nebraska.

During nearly 12 years as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, Mr. Peterson served as senior advisor, speechwriter, or special assistant to numerous Department of State senior officials and the director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in addition to fulfilling political-military, public diplomacy, and consular roles at embassies in Israel, Kazakhstan, and Lithuania. As Director for Southern Africa and Regional Economy on the staff of the White House’s National Security Council from 2019 to 2020, he coordinated the “Prosper Africa” initiative to expand international business opportunities and bolster the resilience of African partners against predatory trade, investment, procurement, and lending practices. Earlier in his career, he was the Department of State’s liaison to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), where he coordinated national security reviews of cross-border transactions worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually, advised Department leadership on implementing the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018, and co-founded the Multilateral Action on Sensitive Technologies (MAST) grouping of 14 allies as part of a diplomatic campaign to harmonize regimes for investment screening, export controls, and research security.

Mr. Peterson holds degrees from Harvard University and Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He is a recipient of the Department of State’s Superior Honor Award and Meritorious Honor Award, a Pickering Fellow, a Visiting Fellow at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at The Catholic University of America, and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is proficient in French, Hebrew, and Russian.