Matt Pottinger

CEO of Garnaut Global LLC / Former Deputy National Security Advisor at White House National Security Council

Matt Pottinger is CEO of Garnaut Global LLC, an open-source risk advisory firm specializing in geopolitical, economic, and technology dynamics related to China.

He served four years at the White House in senior roles on the National Security Council staff, including as Deputy National Security Advisor from 2019 to 2021. In that role, Matt coordinated policy on the full spectrum of national security matters, including great-power competition with China and Russia, the Middle East, financial sanctions and export controls, semiconductors, 5G, and cyber defense. Matt spent hundreds of hours staffing the President of the United States during intelligence briefings, policy meetings, and interactions with foreign leaders.

Before his White House service, Matt spent the late 1990s and early 2000s in China as a reporter for Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. He then fought in Iraq and Afghanistan as a U.S. Marine during three combat deployments between 2007 and 2010, receiving the Bronze Star Medal and the 2009 award for Marine Corps Intelligence Officer of the Year. Following active duty, Matt ran Asia research at Davidson Kempner Capital Management, a multi-strategy investment fund with more than $30 billion in assets under management.

Matt is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and Chairman of the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. His book The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan was published in 2024.