Laird Treiber is a senior associate (non-resident) with the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Prior to this position, he was a career member of the Senior Foreign Service in the State Department. He worked most recently as the State Department’s senior liaison for Prosper Africa, the U.S. government’s program to promote trade and investment between the United States and Africa. Laird previously served as the economic minister-counselor at the U.S. embassies in South Africa, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, as well as earlier tours in Poland, Mexico, and Washington. From 2018-19, the State Department detailed Laird as the senior adviser to the president of the Corporate Council on Africa, where he helped hold two major international events bringing U.S. and African companies together with senior government leaders. Laird has worked extensively on issues related to energy, environment and climate change, finance, trade, intellectual property rights, and aviation. Over the course of his career, Laird has developed broad experience counseling U.S. and foreign companies on how to evaluate economic and political risk. Laird is proficient in Turkish, Spanish, and remembers some of his Polish. Laird received a B.S. from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, an M.I.A. from Columbia, and a master’s in security studies from National Defense University.