Parag Khanna is author of the international best-seller The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (Random House, 2008), which has been translated into over a dozen languages. During 2007 he was a senior geopolitical advisor to United States Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. 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.

In 2008 he was named one of Esquire’s 75 Most Influential People of the 21^st Century, and one of fifteen individuals featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.” He also served in the foreign policy advisory group to the Barack Obama for President campaign. He serves on the board of Independent Diplomat and the advisory boards of Ergo and Business for Diplomatic Action.

Parag holds a Bachelor of Science in International Affairs and a minor in Philosophy from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, a Masters Degree from Georgetown’s Security Studies Program, and is completing a PhD at the London School of Economics. He also studied at the Freie Universitaet Berlin. He has received grants from the United Nations Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, and Ford Foundation.

Parag has traveled in close to 100 countries and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Explorers Club. In 2009 he was honored as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. He had been a Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin (2008), Next Generation Fellow of the American Assembly (2007-8), Visiting Fellow at the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore (2006), Non-Resident Associate of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University (2004-5), and a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, India (2004).

His personal website is: www.paragkhanna.com