Ivo Daalder is a prominent global affairs expert with a career spanning academia, public service and policy analysis. He is retiring this year after 12 years as president and chief executive officer of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, an influential organization that convenes leaders and experts for discussions about the world’s most pressing issues. He also hosts the weekly podcast World Review with Ivo Daalder, featuring leading journalists from around the world discussing the week’s biggest news stories, and writes a bimonthly column From Across the Pond for Politico Europe and the Substack newsletter America Abroad.
Before leading the Chicago Council, he served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013. In this capacity, he played a critical role in strengthening the transatlantic alliance, overseeing NATO’s response to crises, including the conflict in Afghanistan, and promoting strategic defense initiatives that shaped European security. His tenure was marked by efforts to adapt NATO to a rapidly changing global environment – changes that are even more rapid and far-reaching today.
Ambassador Daalder has also been a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, focusing on U.S. foreign policy, European affairs and international security, and on the staff of the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, where he worked on key policy issues including European security and the Balkans.
In addition to his extensive policy experience, Daalder is a respected academic. He was educated at the Universities of Kent, Oxford, and Georgetown University, and received his Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an honorary Doctor of Civil Law from the University of Kent. For his service as US Ambassador to NATO, Daalder was honored by the governments of Germany, Latvia, and Estonia, and received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.