Morgan Ortagus is a senior advisor for the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She is a seasoned business executive, policy and communications professional, and an active U.S. Naval Reserve Officer. In February 2021, Morgan joined Adam Boehler in starting Rubicon Founders, a leading healthcare investment firm.

A veteran of both the Obama and Bush Administrations, Ms. Ortagus was sworn in as U.S. State Department Spokesperson on April 3, 2019 for her third tour of duty in the executive branch.

In 2010, Morgan was assigned to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as the Deputy U.S. Treasury Attaché. Morgan was the principal liaison from the U.S. Treasury to the banking sector in Saudi Arabia. From 2008-2010, she was an intelligence analyst at the U.S. Treasury in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis. She began her government service as a public affairs officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where in 2007 she spent several months in Baghdad, Iraq.

In the private sector, Morgan founded EY’s Geostrategic Business Group and was a Global Relationship Manager at Standard Chartered Bank in the Public Sector Group covering clients in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. She was also the co-founder and Managing Director of GO Advisors, and a national security contributor at Fox News.

Morgan earned an honors thesis at Johns Hopkins University for her research on counterinsurgency and graduated from Johns Hopkins in May 2013 with a dual Master of Business Administration/Master of Arts in Government. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Political Science, cum laude, from Florida Southern College.