Craig Kennedy

Craig Kennedy   (spook?)
Alma mater	University of Chicago
Member of	Atlantic Bridge (Germany), Council on Foreign Relations/Members 2, German Marshall Fund, Project for the New American Century, Rhodes Scholar/1984, Transatlantic Institute
president of the German Marshall Fund in the period 1996-2014  German Marshall Fund/President In office 1996 - 2014 Succeeded by Karen Donfried  Joyce Foundation/President In office 1986 - 1992

Craig Kennedy was the president of the German Marshall Fund in the period 1996-2014.

Career

Craig Kennedy began his career in 1980 as a program officer at the Joyce Foundation in Chicago. From 1983 to 1986, he was vice president of programs for Joyce. As president of the Joyce Foundation from 1986 to 1992, Kennedy built the Foundation’s environmental program and launched a new program on U.S. immigration policy (as an aside hinting at deep state or intelligence connections, U.S. President Barack Obama served on Joyce's board of directors from 1994 through 2002).

Kennedy left the Joyce Foundation to work for Richard J. Dennis, a Chicago investor and philanthropist. During this same period, Kennedy created a consulting firm working with nonprofit and public sector clients.

German Marshall Fund

Craig Kennedy was president of the German Marshall Fund in the period 1996-2014, leading the push into Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Kennedy wrote: "...we were at the vanguard of working in Central and Eastern Europe. We were on the front lines of NATO expansion to include many of those countries. We continue to work in the Balkans, the Black Sea region, and Turkey — areas that can be integrated further still into Euroatlantic structures. And our seven offices in Europe have us uniquely positioned to integrate local, regional, and global perspectives in confronting the world’s challenges."

GMF Berlin Office Director Heike MacKerron described the arrival and early days of Craig Kennedy’s tenure: "When Craig Kennedy joined GMF, he came to Germany and he listened. That was so important to the Germans, and has had a fundamentally positive impact on our relationship with Germany. First of all, he was new. He was not from the security establishment that still dominated transatlantic relations. He was not from the State Department or NATO; he, in fact, was from Chicago, from the foundation community. And he simply asked people, what should we be doing? He then initiated a review of all of our programs, terminated some, and began new ones."

“For the first few years I would go to Europe, and Germany in particular, at least once a month”, said Kennedy. Under Kennedy’s leadership, GMF focused its activities on bridging U.S.–European differences on foreign policy, economics, immigration and the environment. An aspect of that strategy included supporting over twenty American and European policy research institutions that are actively involved in shaping transatlantic cooperation.

Kennedy also expanded the GMF’s programs in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. A major accomplishment of that effort was the launch in 2003 of the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a $27 million grantmaking initiative to groom a generation of dependent politicians {"strengthen select civil society and democracy"), in partnership with USAID, and the Dutch, Swedish and Greek governments, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Similar efforts were the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, and the Fund for Belarus Democracy.

Expanding GMF’s capacities as a public policy institution has been another of Kennedy’s goals. Toward this effort, he opened new offices in Paris, Bratislava, Brussels, Belgrade, and Ankara to complement the work being done in Washington DC and Berlin. Another key program, the Transatlantic Fellows program, was begun under Kennedy’s direction and provides journalists, policy analysts, and academics selected for potential recruitment an opportunity to pursue their research and writing interests in one of GMF’s offices.

Kennedy serves on the Board of the nonprofit Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, the Rocky Mountain Institute, the European Foundation Center, and as an independent trustee of the Van Kampen mutual funds.

 

A Quote by Craig Kennedy

Page	Quote	Date
Brussels Forum/2010	“Some of us think of José Manuel Barroso as a former scholar at Georgetown University in Washington.”	March 2010

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Brussels Forum/2006	2006	2006	Belgium Brussels	Yearly discreet get-together of huge amount of transatlantic politicians, media and military and corporations, under the auspices of the CIA and NATO-close German Marshall Fund.
Brussels Forum/2009	20 March 2009	22 March 2009	Belgium Brussels	Yearly discreet get-together of huge amount of transatlantic politicians, media and military and corporations, under the auspices of the CIA and NATO-close German Marshall Fund.
Brussels Forum/2010	26 March 2010	28 March 2010	Belgium Brussels	Yearly discreet get-together of huge amount of transatlantic politicians, media and military and corporations, under the auspices of the CIA and NATO-close German Marshall Fund.
Brussels Forum/2011	25 March 2011	27 March 2011	Belgium Brussels	Yearly discreet get-together of huge amount of transatlantic politicians, media and military and corporations, under the auspices of the CIA and NATO-close German Marshall Fund.
Brussels Forum/2012	23 March 2012	24 March 2012	Belgium Brussels	Yearly discreet get-together of huge amount of transatlantic politicians, media and military and corporations, under the auspices of the CIA-close German Marshall Fund.
Brussels Forum/2013			Belgium Brussels	Yearly discreet get-together of huge amount of transatlantic politicians, media and military and corporations, under the auspices of the CIA-close German Marshall Fund.
Brussels Forum/2014	21 March 2014	24 March 2014	Belgium Brussels	Yearly discreet get-together of huge amount of transatlantic politicians, media and military and corporations, under the auspices of the CIA-close German Marshall Fund. The theme in 2014 was A World in Transition
Brussels Forum/2015	20 March 2015	22 March 2015	Germany North Rhine-Westphalia Cleve	Yearly discreet get-together of huge amount of transatlantic politicians, media and military and corporations, under the auspices of the CIA-close German Marshall Fund. The 2015 main theme was (R)evolution.
Brussels Forum/2017	23 March 2017	25 March 2017	Belgium Brussels	Yearly discreet get-together of huge amount of transatlantic politicians, media and military and corporations, under the auspices of the CIA-close German Marshall Fund. The overarching theme was "‘End of Complacency – Era of Action?"
Brussels Forum/2018	8 March 2018	10 March 2018	Belgium Brussels	Annual 3 day spooky get-together of transatlantic politicians, media and military and corporations, under the auspices of the CIA and German Marshall Fund. Discussed the "Fight for Economic Equality".
Halifax International Security Forum/2009	20 November 2009	22 November 2009	Canada Halifax Nova Scotia	Spooky conference in Canada in November 2009
Halifax International Security Forum/2010	20 November 2010	22 November 2010	Canada Halifax Nova Scotia	Spooky conference in Canada in November 2010
Herzliya Conference/2007	21 January 2007	24 January 2007	Israel Tel Aviv Reichman University	"The conference examined the array of dangers, threats and difficulties Israel has faced since early 2006, identified a broad web of problems in all of the fundamental strata upon which national security is based, and proposed strategies for action."
Munich Security Conference/2009	2009	2009	Germany Munich Bavaria	The 45th Munich Security Conference
WEF/Annual Meeting/2004	21 January 2004	25 January 2004	World Economic Forum Switzerland	2068 billionaires, CEOs and their politicians and "civil society" leaders met under the slogan Partnering for Prosperity and Security. "We have the people who matter," said World Economic Forum Co-Chief Executive Officer José María Figueres.

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