Jared Cohen

Jared Cohen is the founder and Director of Google Ideas and an advisor to the Executive Chairman at Google, Inc. He is also an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a bestselling author. Previously he served as a member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff and as a close advisor to both Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton.

Jared has conducted research in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, throughout Africa, and has traveled to 91 countries. As part of his research, he has interviewed members of Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Taliban, and Somali pirates. In January 2013, he was one of three members of the first high-level American delegation to North Korea following the ascension to power of Kim Jong Un.

Jared is the author of four books, the most recent of which is the New York Times Bestseller (in both hardcover and paperback) The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Business, and our Lives, which he co-authored with Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. His other books include Children of Jihad, One Hundred Days of Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide, and the forthcoming The Accidental Presidents. He is also coauthor with Eric Schmidt of The Digital Disruption: Connectivity and the Diffusion of Power, which appeared in Foreign Affairs just a few months before the Arab Spring. Among his additional publications are The Future of Internet Freedom (New York Times), The Dark Side of the Digital Revolution (Wall Street Journal), Harnessing the Power of Technology to Fight Drug Cartels in Mexico (Washington Post), Diverting the Radicalization Track (Policy Review), Iran’s De Facto Opposition: Youth in Post-revolutionary Iran (SAIS Review), and Passive Revolution: Is Political Resistance Dead or Alive in Iran (Hoover Digest).

In 2013 he was named as one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in the world. Vanity Fair named Jared as a member of the “Next Establishment,” The Washington Post and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government named him one of six “Top American Leaders,” and Foreign Policy listed him as one of the “Top 100 Global Thinkers.” He is also one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders.

He currently serves as a member of the National Counterterrorism Center’s (NCTC) Director’s Advisory Board. He serves on the board of advisors for several companies, including ASAPP, Rivet Ventures, SineWave, and QSI. Jared also serves on the Board of Director’s of the Tribeca Film Institute and is a member of the Berggruen Institute on Governance’s 21st century Council. He received his BA from Stanford University and his M.Phil in International Relations from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He speaks Swahili and has studied Spanish, Arabic and Farsi.