Parag Khanna is an expert on geopolitics, global governance, and Asian and European affairs. He is author of the international best-seller The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (Random House, 2008), which has been translated into over a dozen languages. During 2007 he was a senior geopolitical advisor to United States Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. From 2002-5, he was the Global Governance Fellow at the Brookings Institution; from 2000-2002 he worked at the World Economic Forum in Geneva; and from 1999-2000, he was a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. In 2008 he was named one of Esquire’s 75 Most Influential People of the 21^st Century, and one of fifteen individuals featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.” He also served in the foreign policy advisory group to the Barack Obama for President campaign. Parag holds a Bachelor of Science in International Affairs and a minor in Philosophy from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, a Masters Degree from Georgetown’s Security Studies Program, and is earning a PhD in International Relations at the London School of Economics. Parag has traveled in close to 100 countries and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Explorers Club. In 2009 he was honored as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.

As a Senior Research Fellow and the Director of the Global Governance Initiative of the American Strategy Program, Mr. Khanna leads an effort to find innovative strategies for governmental, corporate, and civil society collaboration to resolve pressing global problems and redefine diplomacy for the 21st century.

His personal website is: www.paragkhanna.com