Karen Kornbluh

Ambassador Karen Kornbluh is a Senior Fellow and Director of German Marshall Fund’s Technology Policy program which works to help shape a future in which technology strengthens rather than undermines democratic values. 

Previously, she was a Senior Fellow for Digital Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and prior, the Executive Vice President of External Affairs for Nielsen, responsible for global public policy, privacy strategy, and corporate social responsibility. She served as U.S. Ambassador in Paris to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). She was Policy Director for then-Senator Barack Obama as well as serving as deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Treasury Department, and as Director of the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs at the Federal Communications Commission in the Clinton administration. Kornbluh founded the New America Foundation’s Work and Family Program and started her career as an economic forecaster and management consultant. She has written extensively on economic, technology, and family policies in publications including The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic Monthly, and the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology.

Kornbluh has a bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr College and a Master of Public Policy degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Kornbluh was named to serve as Chair of the RFE/RL Board of Directors on January 24, 2021.