Fellows Cohort 2023-2024

The 2023-2024 World Affairs Council Fellows Program cohort brought 36 business and community leaders together from a variety of professional backgrounds. The Fellows convened once a month for in-person meetings with a range of high-caliber international experts and informal staff-led and Fellows-led networking events.

2023-2024 Speakers

• Ambassador Ryan Crocker, nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait, and Lebanon
• Dr. Robert Gates, 22nd Secretary of Defense (2006-2011), formerly president of Texas A&M University, director of the CIA (1991-1993)
• Mai'a K. Davis Cross, Dean's Professor of Political Science, International Affairs, and Diplomacy; Director of the Center for International Affairs and World Cultures in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Northeastern University
• Chidi Blyden, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Millennium Challenge Corporation; formerly Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs
• Brian Concannon, founder and executive director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti
• Michael Swaine, senior research fellow on East Asia, China, and defense policy at the Quincy Institute.
• Edward Alden, Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, formerly Washington bureau chief for the Financial Times
• Ambassador Lianys Torres Rivera, Chargé d’Affaires ad interim, Embassy of Cuba in the USA
• Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution; Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Lawfare

Click here to read about the 2022-2023 cohort.