Dr. Isobel Coleman is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, where she directs the Council’s Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy initiative and the Women and Foreign Policy program.
Dr. Coleman is the author and co-author of numerous publications, including Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East (Random House, 2010), and Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President (Brookings Institution Press, 2008). Dr. Coleman’s writings have appeared in publications such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Washington Post, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor, and Forbes, and online venues such as the Huffington Post. She is a frequent speaker at academic, business, and policy conferences. In 2010, she served as the track leader for the Girls and Women Action Area at the Clinton Global Initiative. In 2011, Newsweek named her as one of “150 Women Who Shake the World.”
Prior to joining the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Coleman was CEO of a healthcare services company and a partner with McKinsey & Co. in New York. A Marshall Scholar, she holds a DPhil and MPhil in international relations from Oxford University and a BA in public policy and East Asian studies from Princeton University. She serves on several non-profit boards, including American Corporate Partners, Plan USA and Student Sponsor Partners.
