
Transformational Leader; Secretary of Defense (2006-2011); Bestselling Author
Ash Carter is a former United States Secretary of Defense and the current Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, where he leads the Technology and Public Purpose project. He is also an Innovation Fellow and Corporation Member at MIT and a director at General Electric Company and Delta Airlines.
For over 35 years, Secretary Carter has leveraged his experience in national security, technology, and innovation to defend the United States and make a better world. He has done so under presidents of both political parties as well as in the private sector. Most recently, he served as Secretary of Defense and before that in the number two (“COO”) and number three (“weapons czar”) positions. He was awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Department’s highest civilian honor, on five separate occasions.
As Secretary of Defense from 2015 to 2017, he pushed the Pentagon to “think outside its five-sided box.” He led the creation of the military campaign and international coalition to destroy ISIS, designed and executed the strategic pivot to the Indo-Asia-Pacific, established a new playbook for the U.S. and NATO to confront Russia’s aggression, and launched the first national cyber strategy.
Secretary Carter spearheaded new technological capabilities and a more agile approach to the relationship between the Pentagon and the tech sector. He also transformed the way the Department of Defense recruits, trains, and retains quality people, including opening all military positions to women without exception.
He earned a BA from Yale University and a PhD in theoretical physics from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Carter is the author or co-author of over 12 books and more than one-hundred articles on physics, technology, national security, and management.
Beyond Tik Tok: The Real State of Play in Technological Competition
A popular app, widely used and easily identified, has set up a highly visible fight between the US and China, but Tik Tok means little to the actual state of play in the competition for internet supremacy. The so- called “splinternet” is not something on the horizon-- it is today a reality. For global organizations, contending with these warring versions of technology will be a business imperative. With his intimate knowledge of both Chinese motivations and technological innovation, physicist, technology leader, and former Secretary of Defense Carter will give his unique insights about the actual state of the “tech cold war” and how policy from Washington, Beijing, and Europe is likely to influence the future.
Lessons on Leading Through Uncertainty and Complexity From The Biggest Business in The World
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the single largest institution in America: the Department of Defense. The DOD is the largest employer in the country, operates more real estate, and spends more money, than any other entity. It manages the world’s most far flung and complex information network and performs more R&D than Apple, Google, and Microsoft combined. Most important, it is the ultimate risk manager tasked with multiple simultaneous crises and an intensely competitive and fast-moving global playing field. Secretary Carter is able to share insights from his unique experience in all three of the Pentagon’s top positions to illuminate how global businesses can tackle today’s simultaneous crises in the economy, global politics, and COVID, and deepen their resilience – all the while actually accelerating business transformation for the future.
The Real Problem with China
Trade wars and rhetoric aside, Secretary Carter will use his personal history of dealings with the past three Presidents of China to help audience members get to the heart of the true security threats from China and what their impact could be on the geopolitical and economic landscape of the future. Unlike the Cold War where the United States and the Soviet Union competed globally did not trade with one another, the rivalry between the United States and China is historically unique. Secretary Carter’s nearly four decades of Pentagon experience under presidents of both parties, as well as a tech leader outside government, position him to clarify the business challenges of this unprecedented partner/competitor relationship as well as highlight opportunities for companies operating globally.
Supply Chains at War Speed
As he took the job as the “Acquisition Czar”, Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter was told that the troops were at war, but the Pentagon was not. Like so many businesses, the Defense Department’s supply chain sought to be efficient—but lacked agility. Today, with an unprecedented global pandemic, many companies find themselves unprepared for the challenge. In this talk, Secretary Carter will share lessons from his implementation of rapid acquisition to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how he then drove the institutionalization of these practices for peacetime in preparation for future potential confrontations with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
Geopolitical Forecast: Asia, Russia and Global Hot Spots
Like all organizations, the Defense Department is operating at a time of global change. The rapidly growing Asia-Pacific is increasingly becoming the world’s economic, political and military center of gravity. An emboldened and newly aggressive Russia is modernizing its tactical, technological and cyber intelligence capabilities. And the threat of terrorism, whether from the Islamic State or homegrown ‘lone-wolf’ actors, must be countered without endless wars. Ash Carter describes the new defense playbook and demonstrates how to take the lessons of history and leverage our nation’s and military’s unique strengths in new ways for new threats. He demonstrates how to develop more agile strategies that prioritize the expansion of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and space capabilities and other modern tools alongside continued dynamic diplomacy. As the U.S. adapts its leadership role in a changing global landscape, he deftly outlines the issues and the fights that will define the years to come.