Speaker: Mara Rudman, Executive Director of the Vital Center Network
Topic: From the Middle East to the Mountain West: Tracking Electoral, Economic, and Security Impacts of the Iran War
Bio: Mara Rudman leads Vital Center Network, a cross-partisan non-profit focusing on growing America’s shared prosperity, security, and civic trust at home and around the world. Mara comes to this mission experienced in how and where sensible voices and community advance American economic and national security interests. She is joined in the work by partners from across the country and the political spectrum.
Mara ran The Ripples of Hope project at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center as a pilot for Vital Center Network. Through that and other roles she has brought together pragmatic business leaders, public officials, and social impact investors focused on implementing approaches that create or sustain good jobs, building economic security locally, nationally, and internationally.
Her prior government roles have included serving on the 2022-24 U.S. Commission on the National Defense Strategy, as deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs in the Obama and Clinton administrations; deputy envoy for the Office of the Special Envoy for Middle East Peace at the U.S. Department of State; assistant administrator for the Middle East at the U.S. Agency for International Development; and chief counsel to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
In the private sector, Mara previously was executive vice president for policy at Center for American Progress, senior vice president for policy/projects at Business Executives for National Security, and general counsel to The Cohen Group. She serves on the board of Howard University College of Arts and Sciences, is an Aspen Institute Crown Fellow, and a practitioner senior fellow with the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, and the Center for Asian and Pacific Resilience and Innovation (CAPRI).
Mara frequently appears on Bloomberg, CNNi, and BBC, among other media platforms, has written for and been quoted in various publications. She received a BA from Dartmouth College and a JD from Harvard Law School.
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