Navin Girishankar

President, Economic Security and Technology Department
Navin Girishankar

Navin Girishankar is president of the Economic Security and Technology Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He leads a bipartisan team of over 40 resident staff and an extensive network of non-resident affiliates dedicated to providing independent research and strategic insights on economic and technology policies and their critical role in competitiveness as well as national security.

Prior to joining CSIS, Navin served as Counselor to the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce on a wide range of domestic and international issues. In that role, he crafted the Department of Commerce’s place-based framework for industrial investments in chips, broadband, and other strategic technologies; its approach to U.S.-China economic relations; and U.S. economic diplomacy efforts with allies in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Global South, including the U.S. commercial engagement strategy for the G7 Partnership for Global Infrastructure and the first-ever Department-wide Africa strategy. Navin also helped architect the Department’s national security approach to critical and emerging technologies and threats covering investment screening, export controls, and strategic capital deployment.

Prior to his service in U.S. government, Navin held senior commercial roles at Bridgewater Associates, where he worked with founder Ray Dalio advising the largest institutional investors in the Middle East and Asia. Prior to his work in asset management, Navin spent over 20 years at the World Bank, where he held senior policy, country, finance, and evaluation roles. Over his career at the World Bank, Navin led a number of major initiatives including the Bank’s 2015 trade and competitiveness strategy, Expanding Market Opportunity and Enabling Private Initiative for Dynamic Economies; its 2011 flagship evaluation, World Bank Country-Level Engagement on Governance and Anticorruption; and the first-of-its-kind 2009 study, Innovating Development Finance: From Financing Sources to Financing Solutions. He also authored numerous articles and papers on economic, fiscal, and innovation policy; sustainable finance; governance and state-building; and evaluation.

He holds a master in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a bachelor of arts in economics with a minor in African and Middle East studies from Williams College. He is a percussionist in the Indian classical tradition and a student of various meditation traditions.

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Navin Girishankar's Commentaries

Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images

Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images

From Tariffs to Tech Power: The Pivot the United States Needs Now

Navin Girishankar argues that the United States urgently needs a ‘total reset’ from tariff policy to a national program centered on full stack leadership in AI. The good news is that the administration’s agenda already includes the elements of such a program. They need to be elevated and made coherent.

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Commentary by Navin Girishankar — May 15, 2025

Navin Girishankar's Podcasts

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Executive Education

Global Foresight: Preparing for Future Trends

Global Foresight: Preparing for Future Trends is Washington’s premier executive course for mid-to senior-level professionals responsible for helping their organizations identify and prepare for the global macrotrends that will drive change for the next 30 years.

Course Date: October 20, 2025
Registration Closes: October 13, 2025

Summit on Resilient U.S. Medical Supply Chains

This summit, in partnership with Cencora, will examine the current state of U.S. generic medicine supply chains and discuss solutions to advance market resilience and stability.

Event — June 16, 2025

Audio Briefs

From Tariffs to Tech Power: The Pivot the United States Needs Now

An audio version of “⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠From Tariffs to Tech Power: The Pivot the United States Needs Now⁠” a new commentary by CSIS's Navin Girishankar. This audio was generated with text-to-speech by Eleven Labs.

Podcast Episode by Navin Girishankar — May 15, 2025

Audio Briefs

From Tariffs to Tech Power: The Pivot the United States Needs Now

Navin Girishankar argues that the United States urgently needs a ‘total reset’ from tariff policy to a national program centered on full stack leadership in AI. The good news is that the administration’s agenda already includes the elements of such a program. They need to be elevated and made coherent.

Commentary by Navin Girishankar — May 15, 2025