German Marshall Fund Expands its GMF Digital program with Addition of Sam duPont as Deputy Director and Ian Wallace as Senior Fellow

New Hires Bring Deep Backgrounds in Digital Trade, Cybersecurity, Data Governance to the Growing Program

April 8, 2020 – As challenges surrounding emerging technology, disinformation, and privacy in today’s world become increasingly central to daily life, the German Marshall Fund is deepening its technology and digital policy expertise with two new additions to its Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative. 

Sam duPont has joined as the program’s Deputy Director, where he will help manage the Initiative’s programmatic and research agenda. He joins GMF from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), where he served as Director for Digital Trade and ICT Services.  At USTR, duPont served as a trade negotiator advancing U.S. digital trade priorities, including on issues related to cross-border data flows, internet and telecom services, and cybersecurity.  In addition, he contributed to USTR’s engagement on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

Ian Wallace comes to GMF as a Senior Fellow. Previously, he was Director of New America’s Cybersecurity Initiative, and a Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs focused on cyber and tech policy. Wallace is on the Advisory Board of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise. Earlier in his career, Wallace held a range of senior positions in the United Kingdom foreign policy and defense community. At the British Embassy in Washington, he served as defense policy and nuclear counselor. His other appointments include Assistant Private Secretary to the UK Defense Secretary and Head of Policy at the Permanent Joint Headquarters (the UK’s COCOM equivalent). In his new role at GMF, he will focus on tech policy and managing the implications of emerging technologies.

GMF Digital is directed by Ambassador Karen Kornbluh who led successful cross-government efforts on Internet policy as an official at the U.S. Treasury Department and Federal Communications Commission, policy director to Barack Obama in his Senate office, and as U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. She has published widely including as Senior Fellow for Digital Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves currently as a Governor of the U.S. Agency for Global Media and board member of the Open Technology Fund.

The program leverages its transatlantic network to shape a future in which technology strengthens--rather than undermines--democracy. It addresses spurring innovation in frontier technologies, the challenge of online disinformation, 21st century jobs, and cybersecurity.

Ambassador Kornbluh and DIDI senior fellow Ellen Goodman recently co-authored “Safeguarding Digital Democracy,” a comprehensive new roadmap for combatting disinformation that lays out concrete and actionable policy, and a plan for collaboration within the field for a stronger, more transparent information ecosystem.

For more information on the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative or to connect with any of the program’s experts, please email [email protected] or [email protected]