Nancy Bearg is a national security policy professional with extensive high-level experience in foreign policy, defense, and economic development in the US Government, Congress, and the non-profit sector. She has worked on policy issues in multiple areas over the last 38 years, including conflict prevention, intervention, and post-conflict peacebuilding; strategic and conventional forces; peace and humanitarian operations; refugees; United Nations; poverty; and public diplomacy. Nancy is also the co-author, with Catherine Allen, Jaye Smith and Rita Foley, of a forthcoming book on sabbaticals.
In addition to her national security experience, Nancy was the President and CEO of EnterpriseWorks Worldwide (EWW), a non-profit international development organization headquartered in Washington D.C. from 2002 to 2004. EnterpriseWorks fights global poverty with business-based, sustainable economic development programs centered on appropriate technology and local entrepreneurs.
For seven years before becoming head of EWW, Nancy was Director of the International Peace, Security & Prosperity Program at The Aspen Institute in Washington DC, where she directed high-level international roundtables on conflict management, conflict prevention, global poverty, and the Balkans and wrote five books based on the conferences.
Nancy was Director of International Programs and Public Diplomacy at the National Security Council staff throughout the Bush 41 administration (1989-93). Earlier, she served as Assistant to the Vice President (Bush) for National Security Affairs (1981-82), the first woman to hold that position.
At the Department of Defense, she served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Personnel (1980-81) and as Director of Policy Analysis for Near East, Africa and South Asia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (1978-79), with an active role in the Camp David peace talks and creation of the forerunner to the U.S. Central Command.
In the legislative branch, Nancy was a Budget Analyst (tactical air forces) at the Congressional Budget Office (1975-77) after serving as the first woman Professional Staff Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee (1971-75). Her first two jobs in Washington were at the State Department and the National Security Council, starting in 1969.
Nancy is the editor of five books published by The Aspen Institute, as well as earlier publications on tactical air forces, peacekeeping operations, and the Balkans. She serves on the Executive Boards of Women in International Security (WIIS) and the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and she is a longtime member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She also serves on the U.S. National Academies of Science Committee on Creation of Science-Based Enterprises in Africa. She has a Masters in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
