Anja Manuel Biography

Former diplomat, author, and advisor on foreign policy, Anja Manuel is Co-Founder and Principal along with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, a strategic consulting firm that helps US companies navigate international markets. 

Anja is the author of the critically acclaimed This Brave New World: India, China, and the United States, published by Simon and Schuster in 2016, and numerous articles and papers.

She is the Executive Director of the Aspen Strategy Group and Aspen Security Forum, a premier bipartisan forum on foreign policy in the United States.

From 2005 to 2007, she served as an official at the U.S. Department of State, as Special Assistant to the Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, responsible for Asia policy.  

Earlier in her career, Anja was an attorney at WilmerHale, working on Supreme Court and international cases and representing clients before the US Congress, Supreme Court, Department of Justice, Department of Defense, and the SEC.  She began her career as an investment banker at Salomon Brothers in London.  

A cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School and Stanford University, Anja also lectured and was a research affiliate at Stanford University from 2009 to 2019, teaching courses on US Foreign Policy in Asia and Technology Policy. 

Anja is a frequent speaker on foreign policy and technology policy, is a commentator for TV and radio (NBC/MSNBC, Bloomberg News, Fox Business, BBC, NPR, etc.), and writes for publications ranging from the Washington Post, New York Times, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, Fortune, and Newsweek, among others.

Anja currently serves on the corporate boards of Ripple Labs Inc. and Hims & Hers Health, Inc., is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a Member of the Defense Policy Board for the U.S. Department of Defense. 

She has also served on advisory boards of Care.com, Center for a New American Security, Flexport Inc., Synapse Inc., and the boards of the Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc., National Committee on US-China Relations, American Ditchley Foundation, and formerly Governor Brown’s California Export Council.

 Anja lives in San Francisco with her husband and two children.