Drew Peterson
Drew N. Peterson is a policy practitioner with expertise at the intersection of diplomacy, strategy, national security, foreign investment, and emerging technologies. During nearly 12 years as a Foreign Service Officer, he served as senior advisor, speechwriter, or assistant to numerous Department of State senior officials, including the Special Presidential Envoy for Northern Ireland and four U.S. Ambassadors, and the director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. He also fulfilled political-military, public diplomacy, and consular roles at U.S. 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, Peterson 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) and spearheaded a diplomatic campaign to harmonize investment screening practices across U.S. allies and partners.
Peterson currently works as an independent consultant in a variety of areas relevant to national security, including trusted technology network design, geopolitical and regulatory risk advisory, and the construction and execution of wargames, tabletop exercises, and other simulations. He has led or contributed to technical assistance and capacity-building missions in Europe, Africa, and East Asia. He is also an adjunct instructor at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, where he teaches courses on diplomacy and foreign policy.
Peterson holds degrees from Harvard University and Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he was the Dulles Family Junior Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. He is a recipient of the Department of State's Superior Honor Award and Meritorious Honor Award, a Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs 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.