Mat Burrows

Mathew Burrows serves as director of the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Foresight Initiative. His recent book is entitled The Future Declassified: Megatrends that Will Undo the World Unless We Take Action (Palgrave/Macmillan, published 9 September 2014).

In August 2013 he retired from a 28-year career in the CIA and State Department, the last ten being spent at the National Intelligence Council (NIC), the premier analytic unit in the US Intelligence Community. In 2007, he was appointed Counselor which is the number three position in the NIC and was responsible for managing a staff of senior analysts and production technicians who guide and shepherd all NIC products from inception to dissemination.
He was the principal drafter for the NIC publication Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, which received widespread praise in the international media. He also drafted two earlier editions of the report. Burrows joined the CIA in 1986, serving as analyst for the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), covering Western Europe, including the development of European institutions such as the European Union. From 1998 to 1999 he was the first holder of the Intelligence Community Fellowship and served at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Other previous positions included assignments as special assistant to the US UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke (1999-2001) and deputy national security advisor to US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill (2001-02).