David Ignatius

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius is one of America’s preeminent foreign affairs writers. He has covered politics, economics, the Middle East, and the secret world of intelligence and the CIA for nearly four decades. An NBC analyst and regular guest on Morning Joe, he also writes best selling spy thrillers, including Body of Lies, The Increment, and The Quantum Spy. It has been said that “few people understand espionage culture as well as Ignatius.” The New York Times described him as one of “the wise men of Washington.” ‍

Drawing from more than 40 years of on-the-ground reporting, Ignatius brings to the stage his insights and expertise on the threats to national security, cyberwar, AI and the spread of information. With his ability to explain and edify the most complex issues, Ignatius addresses the forces at play in an increasingly disrupted world and analyzes the implications of growing uncertainty and risk. ‍

For more than 15 years, Ignatius has published his twice-weekly column for The Washington Post. Appearing in scores of newspapers around the world, his column has won the Overseas Press Club Award, the Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Center for Journalists. In 2019, Ignatius won a special George Polk award for his coverage, nine articles in all, of the killing of Post columnist and his colleague Jamal Khashoggi. ‍

Turning his experiences with the CIA into 11 spy novels, Ignatius has been praised for his “unparalleled understanding of the intelligence world.” According to former CIA Director Leon Panetta, “David Ignatius may call it a novel, but for those of us who know the work of the intelligence community, this book is nothing less than a real-life insight into the ongoing battle for dominance in the digital world.” Agents of Innocence, his first novel, is a classic of espionage fiction, drawing on his experiences covering the CIA’s early-80s campaigns in the Middle East. The CIA recommends the book to young recruits and wrote on its website, “Though a novel, senior officers say this book is not fiction.” His next book, Phantom Orbit is expected next year. His other bestsellers include The Director and Body of Lies, which Director Ridley Scott adapted into a feature film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. ‍

A graduate of Harvard and Cambridge, Ignatius was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and the executive editor of the International Herald Tribune. He has published articles in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and The New Republic. His first opera libretto, The New Prince, was an adaptation of Machiavelli’s The Prince and premiered at the Dutch National Opera in 2017. ‍