Christopher Skaluba
Vice President
As Executive Director of the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, Mr. Chris Skaluba performed a strategic management function as part of the executive leadership team for an organization with hundreds of personnel and a significant budget. Mr. Skaluba exercised direct management oversight of several CDAO components.
Mr. Skaluba directed the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security for five years, where he and his team managed a broad portfolio of impactful programming on NATO and transatlantic security. Mr. Skaluba contributed to policy debates around NATO, especially in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the accession of Finland and Sweden to the Alliance.
Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, Mr. Skaluba served as a career civil servant in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, rising from presidential management fellow to the senior executive service. Among his roles at the Pentagon, he served as the principal director for strategy and force development, where he was responsible for assessing the future of international security and crafting the Defense Department’s strategies to develop a prepared, capable, and effective US military. He additionally served a lengthy tenure as the principal director for European and NATO Policy, where he formulated and implemented US defense policy for Europe and conducted defense relationships with 31 European nations. In this capacity, he helped inaugurate the European Deterrence Initiative in the aftermath of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea.
In other government roles, Mr. Skaluba served as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy, managed the Japan and Korea portfolios as an exchange officer in the UK Ministry of Defense, and worked in the Pentagon’s policy planning office on long-term competitive strategy development. His private sector experience includes completion of the Walt Disney Company’s management development program.
Mr. Skaluba is a graduate of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University where he earned a Master of Arts in International Relations and where he intermittently serves as an adjunct Professor of Practice in International Relations. He also holds a Master of Arts in English from Syracuse, teaching numerous classes in writing and rhetoric while pursuing his degrees. He holds a Bachelors’ degree in English and History from the Pennsylvania State University. His writing and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, The Economist, USA Today, War on the Rocks, and on various Atlantic Council platforms. He was the editor-in-chief of the essay series, NATO 20/2020: Twenty Bold Ideas to Reimagine the Alliance After the 2020 US Election, where he was also a contributing author.