Ted Singer

Mr. Ted Singer joined the Belfer Center’s Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government as a non-resident Fellow in November 2024. Since retiring from CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service in 2023, Ted has been advising public and private sector clients, writing, and speaking on geopolitics, intelligence and national security, and Middle East topics.

His distinguished 35-year Federal Government career included five Chief of Station assignments and leadership of some of CIA’s largest and most challenging operational units.  Ted earned national recognition as a regional expert via 11 overseas assignments that coincided with seminal events in the Middle East, including 9/11 and its aftermath, Arab Spring, and generational leadership changes in major capitals.

With proficiency in Arabic, French, and Turkish, Ted represented the Director, Central Intelligence Agency, and the Director of National Intelligence to both allies and adversaries on sensitive, intelligence-diplomacy issues across the Middle East and Europe. 

Ted earned a BS in International Politics in 1986 from Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and a Certificate in Arabic from Middlebury College. Hailing from a family of nomadic public servants, he lived in Tunisia, Senegal, Zaire, and Kenya growing up.