Alex Wagner is a nonresident senior fellow at the GeoStrategy Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He most recently served as the assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower & reserve affairs. He was responsible for the human capital enterprise of the US Air Force and US Space Force, including recruiting and retention, talent management, compensation, health care and dependent care, discipline, oversight of the US Air Force Academy and Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps detachments, and reserve component affairs. This work impacted nearly 700,000 airmen, guardians, and civilians across the Department of the Air Force.

Previously, as vice president at the Aerospace Industries Association, he led policy efforts on behalf of aerospace and defense companies focused on talent development, including specific programs to enhance workforce diversity; expand science, technology, engineering, and mathematics  education access; and protect employees’ health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the Obama administration, he served as chief of staff to the secretary of the Army, spearheading creation of the Army Rapid Capabilities Office and the Army Digital Service, as well as working alongside tech industry leaders to launch “Hack the Army”—a “bug bounty” program. During previous appointments in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he helped shape the development and implementation of Department of Defense policies on nuclear and conventional weapons systems, including emerging technologies where the law was either unclear or undefined. Prior to his government service, as a lawyer in private practice, Wagner helped draft the briefs and refine argument strategy for a first amendment case decided by the US Supreme Court.

Wagner has also worked in various capacities on six US presidential campaigns, including as the principal staffer responsible for engaging Obama for America’s 150-member National LGBT Steering and Policy committee in 2008. Before law school, he was the nuclear and missile nonproliferation reporter and policy analyst for the Arms Control Association in Washington, DC.