Matthew Freedman

Matthew Freedman, born in 1956 in New York, is currently the President of Global Impact, Inc, a corporate consulting firm located in Washington, DC. He is concurrently the CEO of Indigo Telecom USA, a global satellite Service Provider, operating in over 30 countries around the world, mostly in remote areas. He currently holds a Top Secret/SCI security clearance.

Corporate Activity

As President of Global Impact since 1998, he has worked with major corporations for over 30 years, not-for-profit institutions and multilateral institutions, including providing strategic advice to advance corporate and sales objectives as well as public policy objectives. Past and present blue chip clients include, Boeing, Lucent Technologies, AT&T, Bacardi, SAP America, DynCorp International, and Amway. He has specialized in key sectors including defense and homeland security, economic development and foreign aid, international global health, telecommunications and information technology, capital market development, trade, and consumer goods. His cross [...] expertise ranges from branding and corporate image campaigns to promoting public/private partnerships, lobbying and advocacy to survey research.

Over the past twenty years, Matthew Freedman served as Chief of Party on numerous US Government- funded projects in the former Soviet Republics. He played a leadership role in implementing one of the first major US funded mass privatization communications effort in Kyrgyzstan and later worked on several projects in Russia, ranging from capital market development on behalf of the Russian Securities and Exchange Commission to projects involving Russian health care privatization. He contributed to the first comprehensive study of the state of Russian healthcare entitled “Healthy Russia 2000.” Later he worked as a market entry specialist in Russia on behalf of American clients such as Amway, GTECH Corporation, Ernst & Young, Miller Brewing company and others and conducted some of the first quantitative survey research throughout the Former Soviet Union using acceptable western standards. During this time he also served as a USAID funded advisor on key global health projects including the Global Alliance for Vaccinations and Immunization (GAVI), the World Health Organization’s Rollback Malaria Program, and as part of the global flagship international child health program, BASICS II. He also served as a World Bank advisor to the Armenian Government on mass privatization issues.

U.S. government service

Freedman served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's Transition Director for the United States Agency for International Development, Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the United States Trade and Development Agency. He then served as a Special Government Employee "Expert Consultant" to the Under Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation and later as the Deputy to the Ambassador to the United Nations. Most recently, he served as the Counselor in the State Department's Bureau for Verification Compliance and Implementing – the legislatively mandated part of the State Department created by Congress to ensure the verifiability of arms control agreements.

He was part of the State Department team that worked to secure nuclear materials from Libya after Muammar al-Gaddafi renounced nuclear ambitions. In 2002 he received the State Department's Superior Honor Award for "sustained performance...to further political-military cooperation, reduce the threat of nuclear, biological, chemical and other weapons of mass destruction, and to further US verification and compliance requirements in a post-September 11, 2001 environment."

Earlier in his career, Freedman was the International Development Policy Advisor at USAID under Administrator Peter McPherson, where he received the Administrator's Certificate of Appreciation "in recognition of sustained outstanding performance … and contributions to the foreign economic assistance decision-making process."

He later moved over to the Department of State and assisted in the creation of the Office of Public Diplomacy and served as its first Staff Director in the Office of the Secretary of State. Prior to these activities, he worked as a part-time researcher in the Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget’s National Security and International Security Special Studies Division and at the National Security Council.

In 1988, he worked as a member of then-Vice President Bush’s Middle East Issue Group and received acknowledgement from the Vice President who thanked him “personally for your creative thinking and yeomen efforts in grappling with the difficult job of walking through the ‘mine fields of Middle East politics’.” Earlier, he worked on the Secretary of State’s Commission on Security and Economic Assistance in 1983 and received a commendation from Secretary of State Shultz for his “valuable contributions.”

Rule of Law Activities

For over 20 years, Matthew has been involved in foreign and domestic campaigns. The efforts overseas promoted democracy through human rights advocacy, political pluralism, administration of justice and political party building. In this regard he provided quiet counsel to key leaders around the world and opposition candidates in the Philippines, Korea, Peru and South Africa, to name a few. For example, in South Africa, as a consultant in conjunction with the USG-funded International Republican Institute, he assisted in the creation of the first black/white political party headed by Bantu Holomisa and Roelf Meyer designed to provide South Africans the first multi-racial party.

Early Years

Matthew worked with Lee Atwater at Black Manafort Stone and Kelly in the 1980s and provided leadership as the Director for International Affairs serving corporate clients around the world. He later served as a critical link between the firm and Burson Marsteller which purchased BMSK. He was a partner at Davis Manafort and Freedman before starting his own company.

Other Activities

Matthew currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Business Council for International Understanding, a not for profit organization that brings together public sector and private sector companies. He also serves on the Homeland Security Advisory Committee of The Reform Institute. Previously, he served as the Africa Advisory Board of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).

Education

He earned a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Kenyon College in 1978 and later a Master of Arts with Honors from Georgetown University in 1980. He also attended The Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands as well as York University in England.

Links

• [http://www.globalimpact-inc.com| Global Impact]
• [http://www.state.gov| U.S. Department of State]