Ferial Ara Saeed was a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Strategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

She is the chief executive officer of Telegraph Strategies LLC, a consulting firm. She is also a former senior US diplomat with overseas postings in Japan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Haiti; domestic service on the State Department’s country desks for China, Japan, and Korea; and the National Security Council’s Asia policy staff. She is an expert on US foreign policy, national security, and trade and finance, with extensive experience in North Asia and the Middle East.

Previously as deputy US coordinator for information and communications technology policy, she led a State Department team addressing policy and regulatory problems globally, working closely with industry and foreign governments. She advised the under secretary of state for economic affairs on Asia economic policy and played a key role in negotiating several landmark trade agreements with China and Japan, advancing talks by engaging both governments and formulating strategies.

She oversaw the development of the six-party talks and led negotiations with North Korea on protections for US observer teams at the Yongbyon nuclear facility. She was appointed by the under secretary of state for international security to chair the State Department’s Syria Chemical Weapons Implementation Group, a coordinator role with special responsibility for a Russia engagement strategy and collaboration with the United Nations-Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Joint Mission in Syria.

She produced Haiti’s first-ever televised presidential debates, acclaimed by the United Nations for galvanizing strong voter turnout despite turmoil after the end of Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s administration, and she produced a documentary film and TV talk show on political polarization while public affairs counselor at the US embassy.

She has been published by War on the Rocks, The Hill, the National Interest, and 38 North on the technology race with China, on State Department reform, on US-China trade, and on North Korea and Iran. She holds a BA in anthropology and political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.