Mary Svenstrup is a non-resident fellow at CGD. She previously was a special assistant to President Biden and senior director for international economics, jointly appointed to the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. In that role, Mary worked to enhance the Biden Administration’s climate and development finance tools and represented the United States as the “sous sherpa” to the G7 and G20. She also worked on to expand US assistance to Ukraine and US sanctions and export controls towards Russia in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Prior to the White House, Mary served as a civil servant in the US Department of Treasury for over a decade, working on issues such as IMF policy, strengthening the international financial architecture through the G20 and G7, sovereign debt, macroeconomic and financial surveillance, and Arab Spring economic transitions. She also represented the United States at the IMF as an advisor to the US Executive Director.
Mary holds an MPA from Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs and a BA from Northwestern University. She has previously worked at the International Finance Corporation, investing in private hospitals and schools in the Middle East and Asia, and at JPMorgan.
