Speakers

Ike Blanton is the Deputy Director for International and Strategic Engagement with the Office of Global Investment and Economic Security (GIES), the Department of Defense’s lead office for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Ike leads DoD’s international, congressional, and domestic outreach on CFIUS, adversarial capital, and foreign investment issues. As a part of DoD’s Office of Industrial Base Resilience, Ike also works on international and industry engagements on supply chain and industrial policy matters. Prior to DoD, Ike was a Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State. At State, he served in Recife, Brazil and Guangzhou, China, and worked in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the Bureau of Consular Affairs, and the White House Situation Room. Before public service, he was in-house counsel at a financial institution specializing in mortgage-backed securities and secured transactions. At some point in the recent past, Ike spoke Chinese (Mandarin), Portuguese, and Spanish, but please don’t test his fluency. Ike holds a Juris Doctor and a few other degrees from the University of Tennessee.