Salman Ahmed is the Director of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff. Prior to assuming his post as Director in January 20, 2021, Mr. Ahmed was a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he directed research and led a bipartisan task force dedicated to making U.S. foreign policy work better for the middle class. He also oversaw the review of the national security and foreign policy agencies for the Biden-Harris Transition Team. He served for 8 years in the Obama-Biden administration, including as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council, and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. Before joining the U.S. government, he served for almost 15 years with the United Nations, working mainly on the management and reform of the UN’s international peacekeeping machinery; co-drafting the UN Secretary-General’s landmark report on the Fall of Srebrenica; and serving in field missions in Cambodia, South Africa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Afghanistan and Iraq. He also taught at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. He earned an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge, and a BS in Economics from New York University’s Stern School of Business.