Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook Is New Director of DGAP

Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook has been executive director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts for the past ten years. The project, which she co-founded, addresses 21st-century foreign policy challenges through research by international leaders in academia and diplomacy as well as teaching conflict research and prevention. Since 2018, Clüver Ashbrook has also directed a research program on Europe and transatlantic relations. Previously, she served on the management board of the European Policy Centre (EPC) in Brussels and worked as both a consultant and senior journalist at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in France and China, among other countries. She began her career as a television journalist at CNN International in Atlanta and London.

Clüver Ashbrook contributes to international publications, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, as well as leading German media on transatlantic relations – especially trade and security policy – and German foreign and digital policy. She also advises foreign ministries in Europe and South America on their digital strategy.

DGAP president Tom Enders states: “Under Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook’s leadership, DGAP will resolutely continue on its chosen path of modernization. A number of projects await that are thematically, substantively, and organizationally compelling.”

Clüver Ashbrook states: “Germany must ask itself critical new questions about its place in a rapidly changing world. DGAP will play an important role in this work through its cutting-edge research, international collaborations, strong ties to German policymakers, and, uniquely, its deep nation-wide membership and regional fora that bring the German public into this urgent conversation. We can only answer these questions sustainably in robust public dialogue.”