Patrick Granfield
Fellow, Future Security Program
Patrick Granfield is a writer, strategist, and former Obama administration national security appointee. Granfield has worked on foreign policy and defense issues in the Middle East, at the State Department, and at the Pentagon.
Granfield spent four years in the Persian Gulf as part of the launch team and later opinion editor of The National, Abu Dhabi’s first English-language broadsheet. He went on to serve as chief speechwriter to Rahm Emanuel during his first term as mayor of Chicago. In the Obama administration, he served on Secretary of State John Kerry’s policy planning and speechwriting staff. At the Pentagon, Granfield was senior speechwriter to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and director of strategic communications at U.S. Army headquarters. He most recently served as senior advisor at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and now advises clients on strategy and communications through an independent practice.
Granfield is a recipient of the Department of State’s Meritorious Honor Award for the articulation of U.S. foreign policy and the Secretary of the Army’s Superior Public Service Medal. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Politico Magazine, and The Washington Post. He has lectured at Georgetown University and is a graduate of Dartmouth College.