Richard Stengel

Rick served as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs during the final three years of the Obama administration. At the State Department, he oversaw the bureaus of Educational and Cultural Affairs, International Information Programs, Public Affairs, and helped create the Global Engagement Center, the State Department’s lone entity tasked with combatting violent extremist messaging and disinformation around the world.

Before joining the State Department, Rick was the Editor of TIME from 2006 to 2013, where he oversaw all print and digital platforms. Under his leadership, TIME won the National Magazine Award for Magazine of the Year in 2012, the first and only time it has won that award. In that same year, Rick received an Emmy award for his work as executive producer of TIME’s documentary, “Beyond 9/11: Portraits of Resilience.”

From 2004 to 2006, Rick was President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

From 1992 to 1994, Rick collaborated with Nelson Mandela on the South African’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. Rick later wrote a book about his experience working with Mandela, the New York Times bestseller Mandela’s Way, and was an associate producer on the 1996 Oscar-nominated documentary, “Mandela.”

Rick is the author of several books in addition to Mandela’s Way, including January Sun: One Day, Three Lives, A South African Town and You’re Too Kind: A Brief History of Flattery. He also edited and wrote the introduction to the TIME book, The Constitution: The Essential User’s Guide. His latest book is Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation and What We Can Do About It. The Washington Post said it “should be required reading for new State Department employees.”

Rick is an NBC/MSNBC analyst, a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab in Washington, and a board member of CARE. Rick was an undergraduate at Princeton where he played on the 1975 NIT championship basketball team. He studied English and History at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.