ABOUT THE CO-FOUNDER
WALTER L. CHRISTMAN, PhD
Dr. Walter L. Christman is foremost an advocate of strategic leadership for global resilience. A pioneer in the worldwide adoption of new ventures in international cooperation, he was a principal architect of seven Secretary of Defense initiatives, among three of which were endorsed by two United States presidents.
He is chairman and founding director of the Global Challenges Forum Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland, serving think tanks, research centers, and academic institutions, and launched the Global Resilience Consortium to foster innovation in next-generation leadership development and a new model of global partnerships for the future.
As president of Global Strategic Resources, LLC, a forward-thinking professional services firm, he offers confidential analytic support and creative services to worldwide clients who seek to foster innovative solutions for a secure and sustainable world. Its subsidiary, the LEADS Institute (Leadership Education and Analysis for Development and Security), promotes creative learning and leadership development.
Dr. Christman’s 30-year career with the U.S. government spanned service in the Armed Forces, U.S. Congress, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House, with travel to more than 50 countries and more than ten years of service as a U.S. diplomat in the international community of Geneva, Switzerland.
He has overseen strategic partnership efforts supporting the Office of the Secretary of Defense and U.S. Joint Forces Command in collaboration with the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and bilateral agreements with partner nations in Europe and the Middle East, and Asia. He was the principal architect and negotiator for multiple Secretary of Defense memoranda of understanding with foreign partners. He was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service for conceiving and establishing the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch, Germany. He was a principal architect of NATO’s Partnership Training policies.
Dr. Christman holds a Ph.D. in international relations from the Graduate Institute of the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and an honorary doctorate in divinity from the ACTS Group of Institutions in Bangalore, India. In the United States, he holds a master’s in public administration from Harvard University, a master’s in international affairs from Columbia University, and a bachelor of arts in public policy studies and history from Duke University.
His academic career includes service as associate professor of global public policy with the Naval Postgraduate School; visiting distinguished research fellow of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University; visiting scholar at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China; affiliated faculty of George Mason University; senior advisor for the establishment of the National Defense University of Saudi Arabia; and, distinguished senior fellow of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University.
Before university, he served four years active duty on a U.S. Army Special Forces A-Team trained in delivering man-portable nuclear weapons. He is Airborne, Ranger, and Special Forces qualified and was awarded a medal for heroism for risking his life to save others during a peacetime training incident. A commissioned Infantry and Special Forces officer in the Army Reserve, he was the 2017 inductee to the Army ROTC Hall of Fame at Duke University.