Biography
Adnan Kifayat serves on the Board of Advisors of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Kifayat is Head of Global Security Ventures for the Gen Next Foundation and a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.
Mr. Kifayat held a number of senior positions in public service, including at the White House, State Department, and Treasury Department. Most recently, he served as Secretary of State John Kerry’s acting special representative to Muslim communities and was instrumental in creating programs to broaden and deepen U.S. diplomatic engagement through social entrepreneurship, political empowerment, and shared commitments to security. As senior advisor to the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, he led the development and deployment of the Public Diplomacy 2.0 Initiative, which helped transform the State Department into a new media-savvy institution. His work at the Treasury Department resulted in initiatives and agreements to promote financial cooperation between the United States and key partners in the Middle East, G8, and Asia. He served as an alternate executive director of the African Development Bank Group, shaping Bank activities on the African continent. He served twice on the National Security Council staff to coordinate counterterrorism and economic issues across the Middle East and Africa.
Mr. Kifayat previously worked with Cargill to develop strategies to access Central Asian and Latin American agribusiness markets, and with Delphi International to design and implement U.S. people-to-people exchange programs all over the world.