Scott Carpenter

Scott Carpenter is the Managing Director of Jigsaw, a Google company, where he oversees business operations and drives its international engagement and thought-leadership efforts around such topics as disinformation, online harassment, counter radicalization and repressive censorship. Prior to Jigsaw, Carpenter was among the founding team members of Google Ideas in 2011. He remains an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he founded and directed Project Fikra as the Keston Family Fellow. 

Previously, Carpenter served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Near East Affairs where he helped conceive and implement the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) before being named G-8 Coordinator for the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative (BMENA). His other roles in government include director of governance for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from April 2003 to July 2004, and Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Human Rights and Democracy. Earlier in his career, Carpenter worked for the International Republican Institute (IRI) where he founded and co-directed its European program from Bratislava, Slovakia and on Capitol Hill. 

Carpenter has an M.A. in economics and European studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In addition to serving on the board of RFE/RL, Carpenter currently serves on the boards of the National Endowment of Democracy, the America for Bulgaria Foundation and the Project on Middle East Democracy. 

Carpenter was appointed to serve as a Member of the RFE/RL Board of Directors on March 10, 2023.