Jon Finer Joins CFR as Adjunct Senior Fellow; Mervyn King Returns as Distinguished Fellow

September 7, 2018—The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) welcomes Jon Finer to its David Rockefeller Studies Program as adjunct senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy, and welcomes back Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of England, as a distinguished fellow through the end of the calendar year.

At CFR, Finer will lead a roundtable series on the importance of and challenges to U.S. diplomacy. Finer served as chief of staff and director of policy planning at the U.S. Department of State from 2015 to 2017, serving as Secretary John Kerry’s principal advisor and helping lead the Barack Obama administration’s diplomatic initiatives, including the Iran nuclear negotiations and the Paris climate accord. He spent the first term of the Obama Administration as an advisor and speechwriter to Vice President Biden and on the National Security Council staff.

Before his time in government, Finer reported from more than a dozen countries as a foreign and national correspondent for the Washington Post, including covering the invasion of Iraq while embedded with the U.S. Marines and spending eighteen months in Baghdad during the descent into civil war. He also covered conflicts in Georgia, Lebanon, and Gaza. He began his career at the Far Eastern Economic Review, based in Hong Kong.

Finer received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, a law degree from Yale, and a master’s in international relations from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Lord King served as governor of the Bank of England and chairman of the monetary policy and financial policy committees of the bank from 2003 to 2013, helping to shape UK monetary policy during the global economic recession. He was previously deputy governor of the bank from 1998 to 2003, and served as chief economist and executive director from 1991 to 1998. King was also a nonexecutive director of the bank from 1990 to 1991.

To request an interview with a CFR expert, please contact the Global Communications and Media Relations team at 212.434.9888 or [email protected].