Ivo Daalder Keynote Speaker

Ambassador Ivo H. Daalder is a world leading expert and commentator on international affairs, geopolitics, and geoeconomics. He served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama, on the U.S. National Security Council under President Clinton, and was President of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs from 2013-2025.

Ambassador Daalder has worked in the leading think tanks around the world, including the Brookings Institution and Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, and the International Institute on Strategic Studies in London. He was a senior advisor on nonproliferation policy for Senator Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign and served as the NSC and nonproliferation lead on the transition of the Obama-Biden transition. He is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Action Council and served as a member on OSCE Panel of Eminent Persons on the future of European Security as a Common Project.

Ambassador Daalder is a widely published author of more than ten books on U.S. foreign policy, European security, national security affairs and policy making. His most recent book (with James Lindsay) is The Empty Throne: America’s Abdication of Global Leadership (2018). He is frequent commentator on television and radio on current events and has written for the leading newspapers around the world. His weekly podcast, World Review with Ivo Daalder, features leading journalists from around the world to discuss the week’s global affairs news.

Ivo Daalder was educated at the Universities of Kent and Oxford, Georgetown University, and received his PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also received an honorary Doctor of Civil Law from the University of Kent. He was born in the Hague (the Netherlands).