Speaker Bio

Ambassador Lee Feinstein is a Senior Managing Director and the President of McLarty Associates. A longtime member of McLarty’s Europe and Eurasia practice, he has advised clients in the energy, technology, education, defense, and security sectors, drawing on deep networks across the transatlantic. Over a 35-year career in foreign policy and national security, he has held senior positions at the U.S. Departments of State and Defense. Ambassador Feinstein served as U.S. Ambassador to Poland (2009-2012), where he negotiated the first continuous presence of U.S. forces in the country and an agreement to establish U.S. missile defenses. He previously served as Principal Deputy Director and a Member of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State, working on nonproliferation, arms control, and political-military affairs. He was a presidentially appointed trustee of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum from 2016 to 2021 and presently serves as Vice Chair of the Museum’s Committee on Conscience. Earlier in his career, Ambassador Feinstein served on the Presidential Transition Team for former President Barack Obama and was National Security Director to Senator Hillary Clinton during her first presidential campaign. He was Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations from 2002 to 2007. Prior to joining McLarty as President, he was Founding Dean of Indiana University’s School of Global and International Studies, from 2014 to 2022, where he played a central role in the school’s renaming in honor of bipartisan foreign policy giants and longtime Indiana Members of Congress, Sen. Richard G. Lugar and Rep. Lee H. Hamilton. Ambassador Feinstein is a Trustee of Vassar College, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the American Academy of Diplomacy. He holds an AB from Vassar College, where he studied Russian language and American studies, a JD from Georgetown University Law Center and a MA in political science from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.