Howie Wachtel is a senior director and head of Microsoft’s UN and International Organizations policy team. Prior to this role, he was a senior director and head of global sanctions policy and strategy at PayPal. Howie spent over a decade in several roles in the US government, including as a civil servant at the National Security Council (as Director of UN and Multilateral Affairs), the US Department of State (as Acting Coordinator of Sanctions Policy, and previously as deputy coordinator and senior adviser in the same office), and the US Mission to the UN (as a policy adviser).  In these roles, he covered a range of issues involving the UN, peacekeeping, international justice, multilateral sanctions, and human rights.

Howie began his career as a litigation associate at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett LLP. He has taught a variety of courses on the UN, sanctions, public international law, and counterterrorism policy as an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia, Duke, and NYU. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Global Center on Cooperative Security and the Georgetown University Hoya Hoop Club. He has also worked as a part-time consultant and legal adviser for a UN task team responsible for facilitating the export of food and fertilizer out of Russia and Ukraine.

Howie received a BS in international politics from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, a General Course diploma from the London School of Economics, and both a JD and LLM in international and comparative law from Duke. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two daughters, and a mini golden doodle.