Dr. Kenneth R. Weinstein is the Japan Chair at Hudson Institute. He joined the Institute in 1991, was
appointed CEO in June 2005, and was named President and CEO in March 2011. He served in this role
through 2020. Dr. Weinstein was Hudson’s inaugural Walter P. Stern Distinguished Fellow from 2019 until
2023. Under his leadership, Hudson grew significantly in size, prominence, visibility, and impact, recruiting
top-flight talent and advising officials around the globe. The Institute’s annual budget nearly tripled to
$20 million in this time period, and its endowment grew fivefold to $60 million.
A political theorist by training whose academic work focused on the early Enlightenment, Dr. Weinstein
has written widely for publications in the United States, Europe, and Asia, including the Wall Street
Journal, Le Monde, and the Yomiuri Shimbun. In 2006, he was decorated with a knighthood in arts and
letters by the government of France and serves on the Boards of nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and
Europe.
Dr. Weinstein has served under the last four U.S. administrations as a member of presidentially appointed
commissions. From 2017 until 2020, Dr. Weinstein chaired the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the
oversight body for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, and was Chair of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,
Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting, and the Open Technology Fund.
He is often interviewed by major broadcast and cable outlets around the world and speaks French and
German. A frequent guest on French television and radio, he has served as in-studio commentator for live
French-language coverage of U.S. congressional and presidential elections for nearly 25 years.
Dr. Weinstein previously served on the Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations, which
provides counsel on trade agreements to the United States Trade Representative. In March 2020, he was
nominated by President Trump to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Japan. His nomination was reported
unanimously out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September 2020.
He is the co-editor of The Essential Herman Kahn: In Defense of Thinking (Lexington Books, 2009).
Dr. Weinstein earned his BA in general studies in the Humanities from the University of Chicago, DEA in
Soviet and Eastern European studies from Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, and Ph.D. in Government
from Harvard University.