Reed Werner is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia. In this role, he was responsible for advising Department leadership on matters pertaining to the development and implementation of defense policies, strategies and plans in the region.

Previously, Mr. Werner was in the Investment Banking Division of Goldman, Sachs & Co. in Hong Kong, where he worked on strategic and financing transactions across China and Southeast Asia. Mr. Werner also worked in Goldman Sachs’ Asia Executive Office, where he held regional business development responsibilities and worked on a number of transactions, including the restructuring of Goldman Sachs’ China joint venture. Mr. Werner started at Goldman Sachs in the winter of 2009 in the Investment Banking Division in New York.

Prior to Goldman Sachs, Mr. Werner served for five years across a number of positions within the U.S. Government. He began his career in the Bureau of Resource Management at the U.S. Department of State. He went on to serve in Iraq in 2004 under the Coalition Provisional Authority as Deputy Governorate Coordinator for Qadisiyah Province. In 2005, he worked in the counter-terrorism and stability operations directorates under the Assistant Secretary of Special Operations / Low-Intensity Conflict at the U.S. Department of Defense, followed by an assignment to the NSC staff as Executive Assistant to the Deputy National Security Adviser, and Deputy Assistant to the President with responsibilities for coordinating Middle East, UN, democracy and human rights policies. In late 2006, Mr. Werner returned to Iraq as Deputy Director in the Office of Joint Strategic Planning and Assessment at U.S. Embassy Baghdad, where he worked on strategies countering malign Iranian activity in Iraq.

Mr. Werner was a Navy Intelligence Officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve from 2005-2013.

He earned his BA from the University of Pennsylvania and his MBA from Columbia Business School.