Nina Hachigian is a Senior Vice President and Director for California at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Based in Los Angeles, she is the co-author of The Next American Century: How the U.S. Can Thrive as Other Powers Rise, recently released from Simon & Schuster. Earlier, Hachigian was a Senior Political Scientist at RAND Corporation and, for four years, the director of the RAND Center for Asia Pacific Policy. As director, she developed research projects on a variety of political and economic issues in Asia. Before RAND, she had an international affairs fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations during which she researched the Internet in China. From 1998 to 1999, Hachigian was on the staff of the National Security Council, serving as special assistant to Jim Steinberg, the Deputy National Security Advisor, and National Security Advisor Samuel R. Berger.

Hachigian has published numerous reports, book chapters, and journal articles, including essays in Foreign Affairs and The Washington Quarterly as well as op-ed pieces appearing in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the South China Morning Post, among others. Her earlier book, with Lily Wu, The Information Revolution in Asia, is mandatory course reading at UCLA. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Asia Society of Southern California and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Hachigian received her B.S. from Yale University and her J.D. from Stanford Law School.

Mona Sutphen is Managing Director of Stonebridge International LLC, an international business consulting firm based in Washington, D.C., which advises Fortune 500 and major multinational corporations and institutional investors on business opportunities and challenges worldwide. She is also an advisor on foreign policy to Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama.

Previously, Mona served as a diplomat from 1991-2000, including at the White House as special assistant to U.S. National Security Advisor Samuel R. Berger and as an advisor to UN Ambassador Bill Richardson. In both positions, she was involved in U.S. policy formulation on a range of issues and crises, including Iraq, China, trade policy and counter-terrorism efforts. Previously, she worked in Bosnia for Carl Bildt on implementation of the civilian provisions of the Dayton peace accords, as well as in the human rights bureau of the Department of State and at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, where she covered the pro-democracy movement in Burma.

Mona is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Ron Brown Scholarship Program advisory board and selection committee, and is on the board of Global Rights. She holds a B.A. in International Relations from Mount Holyoke College and a M.Sc. in International Political Economy from London School of Economics.

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