Ali Khedery was an American businessman, special assistant to five US Ambassadors to Iraq, and a senior advisor to three heads of CENTCOM.
Biography[]
Ali Khedery graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2003 before serving as a research analyst for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2002 to 2003, drafting numerous policy papers and researchng global health and education. Following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he was appointed Special Assistant to the Ambassador & Deputy Chief of Mission in Iraq due to his bilinguality in Arabic, in which capacity he helped negotiate the formation of five Iraqi governments, helped draft the Iraqi Constitution, reached out to former Sunni insurgents to bring about the "Sunni Awakening" realignment, and worked with five ambassadors and three heads of CENTCOM. In 2011, he entered the private sector as Public and Government Affairs Manager & Senior Advisor at ExxonMobil, after which he founded Dragoman Ventures, a strategic advisory firm.