Karin von Hippel Keynote Speaker

Dr Karin von Hippel served as Director-General of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) from 2015-2025.  RUSI is a defence and security think tank headquartered in London. It was founded in 1831 by the Duke of Wellington and was awarded ‘Think Tank of the Year’ in 2020 by Prospect Magazine.  She continues as a Distinguished Fellow at RUSI.

Karin joined RUSI after serving for six years in the US Department of State as a Senior Adviser in the Bureau of Counterterrorism, then as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, and finally, as Chief of Staff to General John Allen, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter-ISIL.

Previously, she co-directed the ‘Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project’ at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC and was a senior research fellow at the Centre for Defence Studies, King’s College London. She has also worked for the United Nations and the European Union in Somalia and Kosovo and has direct experience in over two dozen conflict zones.

Karin has numerous publications to her name, including ‘Democracy by Force: US Military Intervention in the Post-Cold War World’ which was shortlisted for the RUSI Westminster Medal in Military History. She is working on an update to this book.

In Spring 2026, she will be the Magro Family Distinguished Visitor in International Affairs at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth.

She is the Chair for the Defence and Security Practice for Arden Strategies in London. She on the Board of Directors of Hala Systems, a firm that develops AI-driven, Open-Source Intelligence tools for situational awareness and conflict management.  She is a Trustee of the National Archives Trust and is a Senior Adviser to The Italian Institute for International Political Studies in Milan.

Karin holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, an MSt from Oxford University, and a BA from Yale University.