Dr Karin von Hippel manages a diverse portfolio that includes organisations focusing on defence, security, geopolitics, open-source intelligence, and advanced technology. She also serves as a Trustee for several charities, including the National Archives Trust. She is a Distinguished Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and a senior advisor at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI).
From 2015-2024, she was Director-General of RUSI, the London-based defence and security think tank. Prior to that, she served for nearly six years in the US Department of State as a Senior Adviser in the Bureau of Counterterrorism, as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, and finally, as Chief of Staff to the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter-ISIL.
She also co-directed the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC and was a senior research fellow at the Centre for Defence Studies, King’s College London. She has worked for the United Nations and the European Union in Somalia and Kosovo, and has direct experience in over two dozen conflict zones.
Dr von Hippel has numerous publications to her name, including Democracy by Force: US Military Intervention in the Post-Cold War World (2000), which was short-listed for the RUSI Westminster Medal in Military History. She holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, an MSt from Oxford University, and a BA from Yale University.