Cara Abercrombie

Senior Advisor

cabercrombie@cohengroup.net

The Honorable Cara Abercrombie joined The Cohen Group as a Senior Advisor in 2025, following a two-decade civil service career in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. A member of the Senior Executive Service, Ms. Abercrombie held numerous senior positions in the Pentagon and the White House. Most recently, she served as the Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the second highest ranking policy role in the Department, advising the Secretary of Defense on a broad swath of national security policies as well as leading the development and coordination of defense policy and strategy across the Defense Department. 
 
In 2023, she was nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, responsible for overseeing Pentagon procurement policy for an acquisition workforce of 150,000 personnel. From 2021–2023, Ms. Abercrombie served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Defense Policy and Arms Control at the White House National Security Council, driving the development and implementation of numerous policy initiatives across the interagency, including nuclear and military space policy as well as conventional arms transfer and security assistance policies. Prior to that, she was the founding President of the Defense Security Cooperation University where she led efforts to train a workforce of 20,000 military and civilian officials on the foreign military sales process and security cooperation with partners and allies. Concurrently, she served as the Acting Deputy Director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, managing an 800-person organization across seven geographic locations with a $190 million operating budget.
 
Over the course of her career, Ms. Abercrombie worked to advance US relations with partners across the Indo-Pacific, strengthening alliances and initiating ground-breaking defense cooperation with India. In addition to serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia as well as Principal Director for East Asia Policy, from 2017–2018, she was a visiting Fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s South Asia program where she published several articles on the US-India defense relationship. Prior to joining the government, Ms. Abercrombie was a program officer with the National Democratic Institute’s Eurasia program and opened the organization’s first field office in Belarus. 
 
Ms. Abercrombie is a 2022 recipient of the Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Executive, numerous Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Awards, and the Department of State Meritorious Honor Award. She speaks fluent Finnish and conversational Russian. Ms. Abercrombie is a passionate advocate for epilepsy awareness and serves as a member of CURE Epilepsy’s Research Committee and co-chairs the KPTN Alliance. She holds a BA from Dartmouth College and a Master in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University.