Malia K. Du Mont is a senior executive and national security professional currently serving as Chief of Staff and Vice President for Strategy and Policy at Bard College. Previously, she was Co-President of Amur Equipment Finance, and was affiliated with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center on Strategy and Security as a non-resident fellow and a member of the Strategy Consortium co-chaired by Michèle Flourney and Steve Hadley. She has spent the majority of her career in the Pentagon, where she held multiple civilian and military positions, including Director of Strategy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). In that role, she managed implementation of the National Defense Strategy, represented OSD on two National Security Staff subcommittees, and oversaw OSD’s strategic futures work with regard to analyzing future security environments. Malia helped spearhead the Obama Administration’s Afghanistan Strategy Review, serving as Special Assistant for Afghanistan/Pakistan Affairs in OSD and on the Joint Staff, following two years in Kabul and at NATO where she focused on analyzing Afghan politico-military affairs.  

Malia began her career at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she managed the school’s China Initiative. She also spent several years analyzing Chinese military strategy and doctrine at the CNA Corporation. She has worked in China as an English teacher, as news editor at a provincial TV station, and in the Defense Attaché Office in the American Embassy in Beijing. She earned her BA in Chinese from Bard College and her MPP from Harvard Kennedy School, and studied in the Hopkins-Nanjing program. An Army Reserve officer and Afghanistan veteran, Malia chairs the NY-18 Veterans and Military Families Advisory Board for Congressman Pat Ryan and serves on the board of the American University of Afghanistan.