Salman Ahmed became the Director of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff for the U.S. Department of State in January last year. Before this, Mr. Ahmed was a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he directed research and led a bipartisan task force dedicated to making U.S. foreign policy work better for the middle class. He served for eight years in the Obama-Biden administration, including as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council, and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. He also directly supported the secretary of state John Kerry’s negotiations with Russia on Syria between 2013 and 2016, and was the co-chair of the International Ceasefire task Force in Geneva. He previously worked for the UN for 15 years, working mainly on the management and reform of the UN’s international peacekeeping machinery; co-drafting the UN Secretary-General’s landmark report on the Fall of Srebrenica; and serving in field missions in Cambodia, South Africa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Afghanistan and Iraq. He has also taught at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. Mr Ahmed has an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge, and a BS in Economics from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Events participated in:

Where Next for American Leadership and the United Nationsin the World?: Watch Salman Ahmed, Assistant Secretary of State of the US, and BBC’s Razia Iqbal, as they explore American leadership and the future of the UN in a world dominated by confict. (2022)

Moscow and Washington Calling: Listen as Allan Little talks to Angus Roxburgh about Russia and his memoirs Moscow Calling, and to Salman Ahmed about the National Security approaches taken by Presidents Obama and Trump. (2017)

Making Peace in the 21st Century: Join Sir Kieran Prendergast as he talks to former Special Assistant to President Obama Salman Ahmed and former South African Ambassador to the US Ebrahim Rasool about what it takes to make peace in today’s world. (2017)