The Hon. James Clad (United States of America)

James Clad is a senior adviser at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) in Arlington, and also advises IHS Jane’s and Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA). During 2002-10, he was US deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia, senior counselor & director for Middle Eastern affairs at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and a senior counselor for the US Agency for International Development. From 1995-2002 he was a faculty professor of Asian Studies at Georgetown University and concurrently Director/Asia-Pacific Energy at CERA.

He trained originally as a New Zealand lawyer, his career shifted in the 1980s to commercial and security affairs in Asia, broadening after 2002 to include the Middle East. In the 1980-90s, he wrote for the Far Eastern Economic Review, and won fellowships from St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. He also served in the New Zealand diplomatic service.

His first book, Business, Money & Power in Southeast Asia (1991) critiqued Asia’s crony capitalism; his next volume, After the Crusade (1996), dealt with American foreign policy. He received the Secretary of Defense Exceptional Public Service Award in 2009 and a royal honour from HM the Queen in 2011. He is married to Aurora Medina, an official at the World Bank, and has three children.