Mara Rudman is a senior adviser to the president at American Progress, where she works to create smart strategies and find the path to turn ideas into action and action into results. She served in both the Obama and Clinton administrations.
Rudman was most recently senior vice president for policy/projects at Business Executives for National Security and led Quorum Strategies, a geopolitical strategic advisory firm. Her government positions have included serving as deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs in the Obama and Clinton administrations; deputy envoy and chief of staff for the Office of the Special Envoy for Middle East Peace at the U.S. Department of State; and assistant administrator for the Middle East at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Rudman is an American Progress veteran. From 2004 to 2009, she worked as the senior vice president for strategic planning and then was a senior fellow and founder of Middle East Progress. She also has been appointed to the 2022 National Defense Strategy Commission, serves on the Howard University College of Arts and Sciences advisory board, and is a faculty fellow at Georgetown University. Earlier in her career, she was chief counsel to the House Foreign Affairs Committee; she started her career working for her hometown member of Congress.
Rudman has been a guest on numerous TV and radio shows and has written for and been quoted in various print publications. She received her bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and a law degree from Harvard Law School.