Paul Haenle

Career

Haenle was the founding director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center (CTC), the Beijing office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and has served as director since 2010, during which time CTC has become one of the top-ranked independent foreign policy think tanks in China. Haenle is also a senior advisor at the global business-consulting firm, Teneo Strategy, and advises CEOs of Fortune 500 companies in the healthcare, chemical, clean energy, and technology sectors on doing business in China. He also advises Chinese firms involved in international investment.

Prior to his consulting career, Haenle worked for the US Government for over 20 years. Most recently, he served for five years at the White House under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama as the principal assistant to the President’s National Security Advisor and later as the China Director. From 2007 to 2009, he was the White House Representative to the Six-Party Talks, the multilateral framework for nuclear negotiations with North Korea.

Trained as a China Foreign area officer in the U.S. Army, Haenle was assigned twice to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, and also worked in the Pentagon as a China political-military advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Early army assignments included postings in Germany, Desert Storm 1991, Korea and Kuwait. Paul retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel. He received a master's degree in Asian Studies from Harvard University in 2001.

Haenle currently serves as an adjunct professor at Tsinghua University in the department of international relations; an advisor to Harvard Square Educational Associates; SAGE Worldwide, a global events and speaker company; the Royal Asiatic Society, Beijing Chapter; the Young China Watchers, a global platform for facilitating dialogue between international and Chinese young professionals; and Atlas-China, a human resources firm which finds employment for young professionals in China.