MENLO PARK, Calif. – The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced today that Eli Sugarman will join the Foundation as program officer for the Cyber Initiative.

Sugarman comes to the Hewlett Foundation with considerable experience in both the private and public sectors. In the realm of technology and cybersecurity policy, he served as a trainer for the Truman National Security Project, and he wrote about issues such as government surveillance, data privacy, and Internet governance as a monthly columnist for Forbes. His writing on those subjects has also appeared in publications that include The Atlantic, Time, and The Christian Science Monitor.

Most recently, he was a senior director for Gryphon Partners, an international consulting firm founded by former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, where he offered strategic counsel to international businesses and nonprofit organizations. Earlier in his career, he was a Foreign Affairs officer for the U.S. Department of State, and in 2007, he co-founded the Afghanistan Legal Education Project to promote the rule of law in that country.

As a program officer for the Hewlett Foundation, Sugarman will manage the Cyber Initiative, a five-year, $20 million portfolio of grants intended to help coordinate the disparate efforts of the government, corporate, and nonprofit sectors to devise the “rules of the road” for fast-changing Internet and communications technologies.

“We are thrilled to have Eli join our team,” said Hewlett Foundation President Larry Kramer. “Cybersecurity is shaping up to be one of the defining issues of our time, and Eli’s broad experience makes him a perfect fit for the Foundation and our work in this area. His ability to make sense of a very complex world of technology comes through clearly in his writing.”

Sugarman holds a law degree from Stanford Law School and a bachelor’s degree in international politics and economics from Middlebury College in Vermont.

He will begin work on December 3. 

About The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation helps people build measurably better lives. The Foundation concentrates its resources on activities in education, the environment, global development and population, performing arts, and philanthropy, as well as grants to support disadvantaged communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. A full list of the Hewlett Foundation’s grants can be found in its online grants database.

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