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.

Programs & Projects

Areas of Expertise

Navin Girishankar's Commentaries and Reports

Photo: Siarhei/Adobe Stock

Photo: Siarhei/Adobe Stock

Tech Edge: A Living Playbook for America’s Technology Long Game

Winning the tech race is not about any single breakthrough. Leadership requires competing across the full menu of technologies, developing the dexterity to build at speed and scale, and defending our domestic markets from nonmarket competition.

Report by Navin Girishankar, Mark P. Dallas, Sree Ramaswamy, Scott Kennedy, Philip Luck, Joseph Majkut, Ilaria Mazzocco, Erin L. Murphy, Matt Pearl, Richard M. Rossow, Sujai Shivakumar, Chris Borges, Ray Cai, and Ryan Featherston — January 20, 2026

Navin Girishankar's Podcasts

Photo: iLab/CSIS

Photo: iLab/CSIS

Confronting the China Challenge

Join us for a special episode of Betting on America, recorded live at the 42nd Annual National Association for Business Economics Policy Conference.

Podcast Episode by Navin Girishankar — March 4, 2026

Listen to the Betting on America Podcast:

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LeadershIP 2026

Scholars, policymakers, and industry experts discuss cutting-edge policy issues at the intersection of innovation, intellectual property, and national security.

Event — March 25, 2026

Can Stablecoins Serve as a Building Block for a Petrodollar Successor?

Building on Navin Girishankar’s “Turning the AI Revolution into Dollar Dominance,” this blog chart shows that stablecoin issuers are buying U.S. debt at a faster pace than oil exporters did in the early days of the petrodollar system. 

Blog Post by Navin Girishankar and Andrea Leonard Palazzi — March 6, 2026

Confronting the China Challenge - Betting on America

The 42nd Annual National Association for Business Economics Policy Conference with experts from Rhodium Group, Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and MetLife Investment Management to discuss industrial policy and strengthening U.S. economic security in competition with China.

Event — March 4, 2026

Betting on America

Confronting the China Challenge

Join us for a special episode of Betting on America, recorded live at the 42nd Annual National Association for Business Economics Policy Conference.

Podcast Episode by Navin Girishankar — March 4, 2026

Photo: iLab/CSIS