Lesley Anne Warner

Dr. Lesley Anne Warner is a visiting scholar with the Africa Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and has over two decades of experience as a foreign policy expert at the intersection of political transitions, stabilization, and security cooperation. She was most recently an adjunct lecturer in the Kellogg Global Initiatives in Management Program at Northwestern University, leading a real-time examination of how the private sector can generate revenue and achieve social impact in emerging markets amid geopolitical shocks. 

Before joining Carnegie, Dr. Warner served as deputy assistant administrator in the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where she was part of the executive leadership team that oversaw a foreign assistance budget of $261 million across 72 countries to advance efforts to protect human rights defenders and mitigate democratic backsliding. She was previously a senior policy advisor to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, where she served as her principal adviser on Sub-Saharan Africa. During her time at the State Department, she originated the concept behind the African Democratic and Political Transitions (ADAPT) Initiative, which became a deliverable for the U.S.-African Leaders' Summit in 2022. From 2015 to 2021, Dr. Warner was a senior professional staff member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where she served as the principal adviser to Chairmen Eliot Engel and Gregory Meeks on Sub-Saharan Africa. While on the committee, she authored the Sudan Democratic Transition, Accountability, and Financial Transparency Act of 2020, which became law as part of the FY21 National Defense Authorization Act.

Dr. Warner holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London, and is the author of Military Integration during War-to-Peace Transitions: South Sudan’s Attempt to Manage Armed Groups, 2006-13, Routledge, 2023. Her research and analysis have been widely published and cited in prominent international television, radio, print, and online outlets.