91ÆÞÓÑ

Alexander Benard is an adjunct fellow at 91ÆÞÓÑ Institute. He is also a senior managing director at Cerberus, a global leader in alternative investing with over $50 billion in assets, where he is the co-head of the firm's frontier markets group. He has led transactions across Southeast Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, the Pacific Islands, and East Africa. He began his career as an attorney at Cleary Gottlieb, where he specialized in cross-border mergers, acquisitions, and private equity transactions.

Mr. Benard has closely followed the US-China competition for over a decade. In 2012, he authored an article in Foreign Affairs drawing attention to China's strategic investments in critical infrastructure and natural resources across Asia and Africa, and offering recommendations to US policymakers on how to respond by strengthening its own capabilities in the area of commercial diplomacy. Dr. Benard continues to track China's strategic investments and also looks at China's evolving efforts to grow its international influence in the areas of payment platforms, weapons sales, and telecommunications technology, among others. He has published articles on different aspects of US-China competition in the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and the National Interest.

Mr. Benard holds a bachelor's degree from Claremont McKenna College and a juris doctorate from Stanford Law School. He was recently a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is a member of the US EXIM Chairman's Council on China Competition.