Ambassador Susan E. Rice was Domestic Policy Advisor to President Joe Biden as well as President Obama’s National Security Advisor, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and a member of the Cabinet. Rice is the only person to have served both as National Security Advisor and Domestic Policy Advisor.

Rice serves on the Board of Directors of Netflix and advises leading American companies on national security, technology, and domestic policy.  Recently, Rice served as a Senior Advisor at the RAND Corporation, exploring the geopolitical implications of artificial intelligence, as a member of the Defense Policy Board, the 2024 Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute and Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human Centered Artificial Intelligence.

Ambassador Rice’s over thirty years of public service and unique experience at the highest levels of the U.S. government afford her unparalleled insight into the full spectrum of domestic and international policy issues.  Rice’s decades of national security experience inform her deep and rare understanding of the current geo-strategic environment, political risk, emerging markets, and leadership dynamics in the Asia-Pacific, especially China and India, as well as Africa, Europe, Latin America, North America and the Middle East.  She is also deeply versed in counterterrorism, global public health, international economic development, and cyber policy as well as U.S. government decision-making. 

The author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For, Rice was previously a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow at American University, Visiting Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center, Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics, and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.   

As Director of the Domestic Policy Council from January 2021-May 2023, Rice drove the formulation and implementation of President Biden’s domestic policy agenda. Rice’s responsibilities in domestic policy spanned a vast array of issues, ranging from health care, mental health, substance use, human services, and veterans affairs to immigration, urban and rural policy, Native Affairs, LGBTQ+ issues, disability policy, racial justice and equity, artificial intelligence and on-line safety and privacy, diversity and inclusion, criminal justice, gun policy, democracy and voting rights, education, hunger and nutrition, housing, homelessness, and combatting hate-fueled violence.   

Rice played a leading role in many critical Biden Administration accomplishments, including: crafting the National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism; devising and implementing the National Mental Health Strategy; making historic investments in child care, public education, Pell Grants, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities as well as other minority-serving institutions; providing student debt forgiveness to 5 million Americans; greatly expanding access to affordable healthcare and dramatically reducing the cost of prescription drugs and insulin for seniors on Medicare; crafting and implementing historic federal police reform and marijuana policy reform; enacting and implementing the American Rescue Plan Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and gun violence prevention legislation; and embedding equity throughout the work of the federal government. 

In her role as National Security Advisor from July 1, 2013, to January 20, 2017, Ambassador Rice led the National Security Council staff of approximately 400 defense, diplomatic, intelligence, and development experts.  She chaired the cabinet-level National Security Principals Committee, provided the president daily national security briefings, and was responsible for coordinating the formulation and implementation of all aspects of the administration's foreign and national security policy, including the $680 billion national security budget and all diplomatic, intelligence, homeland security, and military efforts.  As National Security Advisor, Rice was instrumental in helping to achieve many of the Obama Administration’s signature accomplishments, including the Iran Nuclear deal, the historic opening to Cuba, the Paris Climate Accord, as well as crafting and implementing the global health security agenda and combatting the Ebola epidemic. In 2017, French president Francois Hollande presented Ambassador Rice with the Award of Commander, the Legion of Honor of France, for her contributions to Franco-American relations. 

Ambassador Rice was unanimously confirmed by the Senate as U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and a member of President Obama's cabinet (2009-2013). Rice led the U.S. Mission to the UN where she worked to advance U.S. interests, defend universal values, strengthen the world's security and prosperity, and promote respect for human rights.  In a world of 21st century threats that pay no heed to borders, Ambassador Rice helped rebuild an effective basis for international cooperation that strengthened the United States’ ability to achieve its foreign policy objectives and made the American people safer.  Rice marshalled and oversaw all U.S. contributions to the UN, which accounted for 22% of its regular budget and 28% of its peacekeeping budget, and championed the UN management and reform agenda. 

From 2002-2008, Ambassador Rice was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where she conducted research and published widely on U.S. foreign policy, transnational security threats, fragile and failed states, global poverty, and development.  She is co-editor of “Confronting Poverty:  Weak States and U.S. National Security” (2009) and co-author of the “Index of State Weakness in the Developing World” (2008). 

Ambassador Rice served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 1997-2001. In that role, she formulated and implemented U.S. policy towards 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and oversaw the bureau’s annual operating budget of $100 million and almost $800 million assistance budget.  She was responsible for the management of 43 U.S. embassies and more than 5,000 American and national foreign service employees. Ambassador Rice played a critical role in achieving the passage of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, negotiating the end of the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, strengthening U.S. support for African-led peacekeeping and conflict resolution, and dramatically increasing U.S. trade, investment and assistance to Africa. Rice was co-recipient of the White House's 2000 Samuel Nelson Drew Memorial Award for distinguished contributions to the formation of peaceful, cooperative relationships between states.  From 1993-1997, she served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council, as well as Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping on the National Security Council staff.  

Ambassador Rice began her career as a management consultant with McKinsey and Company where she served natural resource, industrial, transportation and retail companies.   

Ambassador Rice previously served on numerous boards, including the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Bureau of National Affairs (now Bloomberg BNA), Common Sense Media, the Beauvoir School in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.  She is currently a member of the Aspen Strategy Group, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Ambassador Rice received her master’s degree (M.Phil.) and Ph.D. (D.Phil.) in International Relations from New College, Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.  She was awarded the Chatham House-British International Studies Association Prize for the most distinguished doctoral dissertation in the United Kingdom in the field of international relations. Rice received her B.A. in history with honors and distinction from Stanford University, where she was junior Phi Beta Kappa and a Truman Scholar.

A native of Washington, D.C., Ambassador Rice is married and has two grown children.