CSIS Global Forecast: Vying for Influence in the Global South

Editors

Craig Cohen is executive vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a bipartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. In this role, he serves as deputy to the president and CEO, responsible for overseeing and helping to achieve all aspects of the Center’s strategic, programmatic, operational, outreach, fundraising, and financial goals, including recruitment of new program directors to CSIS. Previously, Mr. Cohen served as vice president for research and programs, deputy chief of staff, and fellow in the International Security Program. He has served as editor of two anthologies of CSIS work, Global Forecast 2012 and Global Forecast 2011, as well as director of a project sponsored by the National Intelligence Council that produced the report Capacity and Resolve on foreign assessments of U.S. power. Mr. Cohen codirected the CSIS Commission on Smart Power in 2007 and authored A Perilous Course: U.S. Strategy and Assistance to Pakistan (CSIS, 2007). Mr. Cohen served as an adjunct professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School in 2006. Prior to joining CSIS, he worked with the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations in Rwanda, Azerbaijan, Malawi, and the former Yugoslavia. He received a master’s degree from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and an undergraduate degree from Duke University.

Alex Kisling is vice president of communications at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he works alongside the chief communications officer to direct the Center’s press, digital and social media, and other external engagement efforts. He also oversees the Center’s broadcasting and publications functions. Kisling was previously the director of strategic communications at the Atlantic Council, where he served as the organization’s spokesman, oversaw the Council’s media relations portfolio, and managed comprehensive communications planning for the Council’s programs and experts. He worked for nearly a decade at the leading public affairs firms Kivvit and Public Strategies Washington conceptualizing and managing high-profile strategic communications and public policy advocacy campaigns that shaped policymaker opinion in Washington and across the United States. He began his career on Capitol Hill as an aide to Congressman Steve Driehaus (OH). Kisling lives with his wife and two children in Washington, D.C., and is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio. He earned his bachelor's degree from Trinity College (CT).