Leslie Vinjamuri Keynote Speaker

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri is a leading commentator on the US global role, international security, geopolitics, human rights and democracy.  She is President and CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a role she started in Summer 2025.

Previously, she worked at Chatham House for 18 years.  Her final role there was as the Director of the US and the Americas programme and Chair of the Faculty of the Queen Elizabeth II Academy for Leadership in International Affairs. During this time, she led a project on the US role in a Global Recovery and on the Future of Internationalism, with a focus on the US relationship with China and its implications for international and regional order.

She is Deputy Chair of the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission and a Trustee of the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and on the Advisory Board of LSE IDEAS and the LSE Phelan United States Centre and Vice President of the Board of the Institute for Integrated Transitions. Leslie is also a Professor of Practice at SOAS, University of London. where she shares her expertise on international diplomacy and international institutions in world politics.

She has written extensively on US politics and foreign policy, human rights, international order and transatlantic relations and is author and co-editor of ‘Anchoring the World: International Order in the Twenty-First Century‘ (with Charles A. Kupchan, Foreign Affairs, 2021) and ‘Human Rights Futures‘ (with Stephen Hopgood and Jack Snyder, Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Her articles have appeared in many journals and books including Foreign Affairs, International Security, Ethics and International Affairs, Daedalus, Law and Contemporary Problems and Survival.

Leslie has written for and appeared regularly in the media including for CNN; Bloomberg; BBC News, BBC World; BBC World Service; Sky News; The Financial Times; The New York Times; The Guardian; The Telegraph; The Independent; Los Angeles Times; National Public Radio; Times Radio; Economist Radio; Al Jazeera English; Voice of America.

She was previously on the faculty of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and has held fellowships at Harvard University and the London School of Economics. Earlier, she worked at the US Agency for International Development, and before this, Congressional Research Service in the US Library of Congress.

Leslie has a BA from Wesleyan University (Phi Beta Kappa), an MSc (Distinction) from the London School of Economics, and a PhD from Columbia University.