The New America Foundation’s Board of Directors has announced the appointment of Anne-Marie Slaughter as the Foundation’s next president. The announcement puts an end to speculation that Slaughter would be chosen as the next president of Princeton University.
Slaughter, a Princeton professor, former Dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and the former director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department, will succeed Steve Coll, who stepped down on March 31 after five years leading the nonpartisan public policy think tank. Slaughter, a current New America board member, will work out of both New America’s Washington, DC and New York offices.
“Anne-Marie Slaughter is a creative, inspiring thinker who has played a critical role in the institution’s success as a board member, and we are thrilled for her to lead New America in what promises to be an exceptional period for both the institution and society,” said David Bradley, chairman of the Board’s search committee. “Steve Coll firmly established New America as an innovative policy institute that’s tackling today’s greatest challenges, and she is the right person to build on that foundation.”
“I have loved New America ever since I met its founder Ted Halstead over a decade ago,” Slaughter said in a release about the appointment. “It is a generator and incubator of big ideas, assembling a community of thinkers and policy entrepreneurs who have the time to look over the political horizon in a way that is rare in Washington. On the personal front, leaving the academy for New America will be a new and exciting adventure, allowing me to combine my foreign policy and social policy interests, help build a genuinely 21st century think tank, and combine career and family in a way that works for both.”
Slaughter served as the director of policy planning at the State Department from 2009-2011. She was the first woman to hold that position. She is currently the Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, where she also served as Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs prior to her government service. With her new role at New America, she will transition to emeritus status at Princeton.
Slaughter is one of the nation’s leading thinkers about the challenges and opportunities presented by 21st century globalization. Foreign Policy magazine has named Slaughter to its annual list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers in each of the past four years. She has written or edited six books. From 1994-2002, Slaughter was the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law and Director of the International Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School. She received a B.A. from Princeton, an M.Phil and D.Phil in international relations from Oxford, where she was a Daniel M. Sachs Scholar, and a J.D. from Harvard.
Slaughter ignited a national conversation about work-life balance and the lack of women in workplace leadership roles with her summer cover article in The Atlantic, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” which chronicles her life as a top State Department official while balancing her role as mother to her two adolescent sons. The subject is the topic of a new book she is writing.
“Anne-Marie Slaughter’s extensive policy expertise and visionary leadership made her the clear choice for this position,” said New America Board Chair and Executive Chairman of Google Eric Schmidt.
“As a writer and thinker, Anne-Marie Slaughter has always been courageous and innovative, willing to break with convention and to think forward about globalization and social change,” said Steve Coll, who has recently been appointed Dean of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. “Her work shows that she has enormous range – from foreign policy to gender to technology and economics. She also has infectious energy and a track record of leadership success – New America is very fortunate to have her.”
The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States. New America emphasizes work that is responsive to the changing conditions and problems of our 21st century. With close to 140 staff and fellows and an annual budget over $20 million, New America has domestic and foreign policy programs focused on national security studies, technology, asset building, health, energy, education, the economy, and work and family balance.