Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook is a non-resident fellow with the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi). Her research focuses on the intersection of data and technology with foreign and urban policy.
Previously, she served as director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). For over a decade prior, Ms. Clüver Ashbrook served as the executive director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The research program, which she co-founded, examines the challenges to negotiation and statecraft in the 21st century, including the impact of technology on foreign policy. In addition, Ms. Clüver Ashbrook directed a Harvard research program on Europe and transatlantic relations from 2018 to 2021. Before that, she served on the management board of the European Policy Centre (EPC) in Brussels and worked as both a consultant and senior journalist at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in France and China. She began her career as a television journalist at CNN International in Atlanta and London.
She holds an undergraduate honors degree in international relations and French civilization from Brown University, a master’s degree in European studies from the London School of Economics, and a master’s degree in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School where she was a Hauser Fellow in Non-Profit Management.
Joel Brenner is a senior research fellow at MIT’s Center for International Studies, where his work concerns intelligence studies, international conflict in the gray zone between war and peace, and the protection of the electronic networks that control critical infrastructure.
In government, Mr. Brenner was Senior Counsel at the National Security Agency (2009-2010), advising Agency leadership on the public-private effort to create better Internet security; the head of US counterintelligence under the Director of National Intelligence (2009-2010); and NSA’s Inspector General (2002-2006), responsible for that agency’s top-secret internal audits and investigations. Early in his career, he was a prosecutor in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. He has extensive trial and arbitration experience in private practice.
Mr. Brenner is a director of Nokia of America Corporation and of Endgame Systems LLC and a member of the Intelligence Community Studies Board. He holds a JD from Harvard Law School, a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, and a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is an advisor to the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security and the author of America The Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital Espionage, Crime and Warfare, in paperback as Glass Houses: Privacy, Secrecy, and Cyber Insecurity in a Transparent World.
Paul Taylor has over 30 years of experience leading the delivery of some of the most demanding national security programs in the UK, operating at the very highest levels of government. As a result, he is uniquely qualified to understand the evolving threat environment, as well as having an exceptional track record of driving and delivering change in complex organizations. Mr. Taylor’s contribution to the world of science and technology was recognized by his election as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2013, where he now chairs the SME Leaders’ program and sits on the Engineering Policy, Enterprise, and Audit Committees. He also sits on the Advisory Board of the Imperial College Institute of Security Science and Technology, and the Advisory Board of the Strathclyde University Security and Resilience Center.
In 2020, Mr. Taylor was appointed as a Non-Executive Director for Morgan Stanley International, where he sits on the Audit, Risk, Nominations, and Remunerations Committees. He is also a member of the Technology Advisory Board for NatWest Bank. In addition, he serves as a Non-Executive Director in the Ministry of Defence, and as a scientific adviser to three small government departments.
For six years Mr. Taylor was a Partner in KPMG, where he was the Head of the UK Financial Services Cyber Security Practice. Before consulting, he spent over 25 years in the UK public sector working for the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defense, on matters of research and development, defense equipment, nuclear deterrence, chemical and biological defense, information technology , and information security.
