Navin Girishankar

President, Economic Security and Technology Department
Navin Girishankar

Navin Girishankar is president of the Economic Security and Technology Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He leads a bipartisan team of over 40 resident staff and an extensive network of non-resident affiliates dedicated to providing independent research and strategic insights on economic and technology policies and their critical role in competitiveness as well as national security.

Prior to joining CSIS, Navin served as Counselor to the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce on a wide range of domestic and international issues. In that role, he crafted the Department of Commerce’s place-based framework for industrial investments in chips, broadband, and other strategic technologies; its approach to U.S.-China economic relations; and U.S. economic diplomacy efforts with allies in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Global South, including the U.S. commercial engagement strategy for the G7 Partnership for Global Infrastructure and the first-ever Department-wide Africa strategy. Navin also helped architect the Department’s national security approach to critical and emerging technologies and threats covering investment screening, export controls, and strategic capital deployment.

Prior to his service in U.S. government, Navin held senior commercial roles at Bridgewater Associates, where he worked with founder Ray Dalio advising the largest institutional investors in the Middle East and Asia. Prior to his work in asset management, Navin spent over 20 years at the World Bank, where he held senior policy, country, finance, and evaluation roles. Over his career at the World Bank, Navin led a number of major initiatives including the Bank’s 2015 trade and competitiveness strategy, Expanding Market Opportunity and Enabling Private Initiative for Dynamic Economies; its 2011 flagship evaluation, World Bank Country-Level Engagement on Governance and Anticorruption; and the first-of-its-kind 2009 study, Innovating Development Finance: From Financing Sources to Financing Solutions. He also authored numerous articles and papers on economic, fiscal, and innovation policy; sustainable finance; governance and state-building; and evaluation.

He holds a master in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a bachelor of arts in economics with a minor in African and Middle East studies from Williams College. He is a percussionist in the Indian classical tradition and a student of various meditation traditions.

Programs & Projects

Areas of Expertise

Navin Girishankar's Commentaries and Reports

Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

America Needs Economic Warriors

"Building an economic warrior class should be a national priority among government, business, universities, think tanks, and philanthropies," warns CSIS’s Navin Girishankar in Foreign Affairs.

Commentary by Navin Girishankar — December 30, 2025

Navin Girishankar's Podcasts

Photo: iLab/CSIS

Photo: iLab/CSIS

New Pathways to Prosperity ft. Paul Ryan, fmr Speaker of the U.S. House of Reps

Paul Ryan joins Navin Girishankar for a wide-ranging conversation on the big forces shaping politics and policy—competing populisms, U.S. trade policy and its discontents, out-of-control fiscal deficits, the future of the U.S. dollar, and the tech race with China.

Podcast Episode by Navin Girishankar and Paul Ryan — January 7, 2026

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Indo-Pacific Forecast 2026

Please join the CSIS Geopolitics and Foreign Policy (GFP) Department's annual preview of political, economic, and security developments across the region.

Event — January 14, 2026

Betting on America

New Pathways to Prosperity ft. Paul Ryan, fmr Speaker of the U.S. House of Reps

Paul Ryan joins Navin Girishankar for a wide-ranging conversation on the big forces shaping politics and policy—competing populisms, U.S. trade policy and its discontents, out-of-control fiscal deficits, the future of the U.S. dollar, and the tech race with China.

Podcast Episode by Navin Girishankar and Paul Ryan — January 7, 2026

Photo: iLab/CSIS

America Needs Economic Warriors

"Building an economic warrior class should be a national priority among government, business, universities, think tanks, and philanthropies," warns CSIS’s Navin Girishankar in Foreign Affairs.

Commentary by Navin Girishankar — December 30, 2025

Betting on America

American Leadership in the World Featuring Governor David Beasley

David Beasley, former South Carolina governor and former executive director of the World Food Programme, joins Navin Girishankar on Betting on America to share lessons on U.S. global leadership for a new era of economic security.

Podcast Episode by Navin Girishankar — December 17, 2025

Photo: iLab/CSIS

Turning the AI Revolution into Dollar Dominance

Navin Girishankar argues that President Trump's Gulf chip deals enable billions in AI exports but miss what ensures dollar dominance. A compute-dollar successor to the petrodollar will keep China’s offer of AI plus digital yuan settlement in the rearview mirror. 

Commentary by Navin Girishankar — December 8, 2025