Anja Manuel

About

Former diplomat, author, and advisor on foreign policy, Anja Manuel is cofounder and principal along with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, a strategic consulting firm that helps US companies navigate international markets. 

Manuel is the author of the critically acclaimed This Brave New World: India, China, and the United States (Simon and Schuster, 2016) and numerous articles and papers. She is also the executive director of the Aspen Strategy Group and Aspen Security Forum, a premier bipartisan forum on foreign policy in the United States. From 2005 to 2007, she served as an official at the US Department of State, as special assistant to the under secretary for political affairs, Nicholas Burns, responsible for Asia policy.  

Earlier in her career, Manuel was an attorney at WilmerHale, working on Supreme Court and international cases and representing clients before the US Congress, the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, and the Securities Exchange Commission. She began her career as an investment banker at Salomon Brothers in London.

A graduate cum laude of Harvard Law School and Stanford University, Manuel also has lectured and been a research affiliate at Stanford University (2009–19, 2024–today), teaching courses on US foreign policy in Asia and technology policy. 

Manuel is a frequent speaker on foreign policy and technology policy; is a commentator for television and radio outlets including NBC, MSNBC, Bloomberg News, Fox Business, BBC, and NPR; and writes for publications such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, and Fortune, among others.

She currently serves on the corporate boards of Ripple Labs Inc. and Hims & Hers Health Inc. and on the Applied Materials Secure Innovation Advisory Board. Additionally, she is a member of the Defense Policy Board for the US Department of Defense.

She serves or has served on the boards or advisory boards of the National Committee on US-China Relations, CARE.org, Center for a New American Security, Flexport Inc., Synapse Inc., the Overseas Shipholding Group Inc., American Ditchley Foundation, and Governor Brown’s California Export Council. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.