Hady Amr

Hady Amr is a thought leader on a range of socioeconomic and geopolitical issues facing the Middle East with a focus on the Levant, Israeli-Palestinian relations and the Gulf, as well as Arab human development, Middle East economic growth, U.S. public diplomacy, and countering violent extremism. He draws on three decades of experience related to the Middle East ranging from working as a senior U.S. diplomat, to the entrepreneurial leadership of start-ups.

Amr served in the Obama administration as a White House appointee and a senior diplomat. From 2013 to 2017, Amr served at the U.S. Department of State, most recently as deputy special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, with a focus on key economic issues in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. From 2010 to 2013, he served as deputy assistant administrator for the Middle East at the United States Agency for International Development, deputy head of a 600-person bureau that managed $1.6 billion annually in foreign assistance to the Middle East, including to Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, and Yemen. At the onset of the Arab uprisings, he took on a leadership role in launching a U.S. assistance response for Libya, Syria, and Tunisia.

His U.S. government service also includes time spent as a senior advisor at the Department of Homeland Security in 2010 working on countering violent extremism, and as a Clinton administration appointee as a defense fellow at the Department of Defense where he helped establish the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University.

From 2006 to 2010, he served as a scholar and the founding director of the Brookings Doha Center, where he built and managed the multi-million dollar center from the ground up, including all legal, governance, staffing, and financial dimensions, as well as setting the research and communications agenda for the center. He also worked to build an advisory council for the center that included former national security advisors and ministers. At Brookings, he also served as a co-convener of the annual U.S.-Islamic World Forum, a global event that included heads of state.

During his career, he has worked for or advised various international organizations on key human development, institution-building, and public-private partnership issues, including the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and various United Nations.

Amr has also played key roles in various U.S. presidential campaigns, including serving in the headquarters of Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, as Al Gore’s national director for ethnic American engagement in 2000, as a foreign policy group coordinator for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, and as the lead representative to the American Muslim community for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

He has also served on various distinguished boards and commissions. In 2002, he was appointed by Virginia Governor Mark Warner to the Virginia Public Schools Authority where he oversaw the issuance of billions of dollars in school bonds in a AAA-rated state, a position to which he was reappointed by Governor Tim Kaine, serving until 2010. He also served on the advisory committee for the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

Amr has authored numerous scholarly and research publications including, “Engaging the Muslim World” by Brookings and the “State of the Arab Child” by UNICEF. He has contributed regularly to international television broadcasts on networks such as Al Jazeera, BBC, and CNN, and has published scores of articles including in venues such as Newsweek, The Washington Post, USA Today, the International Herald Tribune, The Hill, and wide-ranging publications across the Middle East.

His life-long professional passions are human development in the Arab world, U.S.-Middle East relations, and the better integration of new immigrant communities into American society.

Outside of Brookings, Amr is providing outside informal counsel exclusively to the Biden campaign for President.

Affiliations:

• Center for a New American Security, adjunct senior fellow
• Council on Foreign Relations, member
• George Mason University, Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, member, advisory board
• International Education and Resource Network, member of the board of directors
• Princeton University, Scholars in the Nation’s Service, member, advisory council
• Tufts University, Tisch College, member, advisory board

EDUCATION

• M.A., Princeton University, 1994
• B.A., Tufts University, 1988