Parag Khanna

Parag Khanna is a leading global strategist, world traveller, and best-selling author. He is Managing Partner of FutureMap, a data and scenario based strategic advisory firm, and Senior Research Fellow in the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. In 2008, Parag was named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century,” and featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.”

Parag Khanna Lecture Topics

• Global Scenarios for the Post-Pandemic World
• The Global War for Young Talent
• Climate Adaptation: This Century’s Highest Priority
• The Future is Asian: Billions of People, Trillions of Dollars

Parag Khanna has been an adviser to the U.S. National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2030 program, and served in the foreign policy advisory group to the Barack Obama for President campaign. From 2006-2015 he was a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation. During 2007 he served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a senior geopolitical adviser to United States Special Operations Forces. From 2002-5, he was the Global Governance Fellow at the Brookings Institution; from 2000-2002 he worked at the World Economic Forum in Geneva; and from 1999-2000, he was a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

A widely cited global intellectual, Dr. Khanna provides regular commentaries for international media. He is currently a CNN Global Contributor. His 2008 cover story for the New York Times Magazine titled “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony,” is one of the most globally debated and influential essays since the end of the Cold War. His articles have appeared in major international publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Washington Post. He also appears frequently in media around the world such as BBC, CNBC and Al Jazeera. He spoke at TED in 2016, TED Global 2009 and was a guest host of TED Global 2012.

Parag Khanna lectures frequently at international conferences and gives executive briefings to government leaders and major corporations on global trends and scenarios, systemic risks and technological disruptions, and market entry strategies and economic master planning. He is a subcommittee member of the Singapore government’s Committee on the Future Economy. He also serves on the advisory boards of Graticule Asset Management Asia, the Duet Group, and East India Capital Management, and previously on the Innovation Advisory Board of DBS Bank.

Dr. Parag Khanna holds a PhD in international relations from the London School of Economics, and Bachelors and Masters degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. In 2015-2016 he was awarded the Richard von Weizsaecker Fellowship of the Bosch Foundation. He has received grants from the United Nations Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, and Ford Foundation. Parag has been honored as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and currently serves on the WEF’s Global Agenda Council on Geo-economics and advisory board of its Future of Urban Development Initiative. He also serves on the Council of the American Geographical Society, advisory board of Independent Diplomat and board of trustees of the New Cities Foundation. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, International Institute for Strategic Studies, and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

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