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Samantha Sultoon is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. Ms. Sultoon is an economic statecraft and foreign policy expert with over a decade of experience in the White House and the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Ms. Sultoon previously served as the Director for Threat Finance and Sanctions at the National Security Council (NSC) at the White House where she developed and coordinated the Biden Administration’s policymaking process for a range of economic statecraft and national security issues. During her tenure at NSC, Ms. Sultoon led and directed cross-government processes to develop and implement counter threat finance and economic sanctions strategies across geographic and thematic policy priorities. She was instrumental in the development and implementation of multiple new executive orders, policy strategies, and coordinating with international partners.
Formerly a sanctions policy expert for the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Ms. Sultoon played an active role across the agency’s policy work. As the OFAC lead on Treasury’s 2021 Sanctions Review, she developed and co-led implementation of the first-ever comprehensive review of U.S. sanctions strategy. She also coordinated the first-ever G7 Deputies meeting on sanctions. During her time at OFAC, Ms. Sultoon also served as Section Chief of OFAC Enforcement, and as Senior Sanctions Policy Advisor. Ms. Sultoon was responsible for shaping new policies and regulations for both strengthening (Syria) and easing (Burma I, Cuba, Sudan) sanctions measures, and developing and implementing new sanctions authorities (Global Magnitsky, Burundi). Ms. Sultoon also created and led the implementation of OFAC’s strategy on Brexit- and EU-related sanctions issues, including diplomatic engagement and technical sanctions capacity building with allies and partners. Ms. Sultoon regularly represented the U.S. Government domestically and internationally, conducting outreach and engagements with Congress, foreign governments, and the private sector. Prior to her work at OFAC, Ms. Sultoon was an intelligence advisor in the Treasury Department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis and a risk expert for the World Bank. There, she managed and edited her team’s global risk publications for the World Bank’s Executive Board and also led crisis management and business continuity training for World Bank offices in the Middle East and North Africa.
Ms. Sultoon has an MSc with distinction from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London and a BA from the University of Michigan. She is a former Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow and a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.