Fred Kempe has held the position of president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council since December 2006.
Prior to joining the Council, he had a long and prominent career at the Wall Street Journal, where he won national and international recognition while serving in numerous senior editorial and reportorial capacities. He is the author of three books, and a regular commentator on television and radio both in Europe and the United States.
In 2002, the European Voice, a leading publication following EU affairs, selected Mr. Kempe as one of the 50 most influential Europeans, although he is American, and one of the four leading journalists in Europe. He has been a frequent television and radio commentator for, among others, CNBC, the BBC, and German radio and television.
Mr. Kempe has written three books that have been published in several languages: "Divorcing the Dictator: America's Bungled Affair with Noriega"; "Siberian Odyssey: A Voyage into the Russian Soul"; and "Father/Land: A Personal Search for the New Germany." His fourth, "Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev and the World’s Most Dangerous Place," was published on May 10, 2011 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons and was a New York Times hardback bestseller.
Mr. Kempe is a graduate of the University of Utah and has a Master’s Degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he was a member of the International Fellows program in the School of International Affairs.
He serves on a number of Boards of Directors, including the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS) at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., and is on the advisory board of the
