Our Core Values
Stimson’s core values – transparency, independence, and novel thinking, among them – inform both the work that we do and how we do it. As an employer, we strive to attract and cultivate the greatest foreign policy experts and analysts available. Stimson’s workforce represents the broadest cross section of backgrounds and views. This rich tapestry of expert perspectives gives the Center its competitive edge and facilitates novel thinking and impact.Â
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As an organization working globally, we are putting our priorities to work – our core values help to inform the global challenges we choose to address and shape the methods we use to meet those challenges.
Building a New Public Discourse on Foreign Policy
The Stimson Center is committed to building a new public discourse on foreign policy. In that pursuit, we are interrogating long-held assumptions, combatting groupthink, and bringing together diverse, as well as divergent, perspectives on some of the most critical issues of our day. This approach informs both the work that we do and how we do it.
As an employer, we strive to be a magnet for the world’s leading talent, to attract and cultivate the greatest foreign policy experts and analysts available, and to further our own understanding of today’s most insidious challenges and the unique role that Stimson can play in building tangible solutions. Stimson’s workforce represents the broadest cross section of backgrounds and perspectives, and this diversity of views gives the Center its competitive edge and facilitates novel thinking and impact.
As an organization working globally, we are committed to the pursuit of international security, shared prosperity, and justice. Our core values help guide the global challenges we choose to address and inform the methods we use to meet those challenges.
Interrogating Assumptions and Tapping New Perspectives
Stimson works to solve problems differently than most policy organizations. We match academic rigor with practical experience, conducting on-the-ground field research, engaging new perspectives, and involving new constituencies.
Technology has rightly empowered new voices, including those of previously marginalized communities, bringing new perspectives, energy, and ideas to meet a host of emerging global challenges. Stimson’s Responsible AI Fellowship, for example, a multi-year partnership with Microsoft, is just one of the ways we’re engaging the global majority to build future solutions that mitigate risk and maximize opportunity of technological change.Â
We believe tapping the full range of expert perspectives is essential to understanding and addressing the world’s most insidious problems. By working closely with a diverse range of expert stakeholders, the Stimson Center is able to turn policy ideas into actions with real-world impact.
Putting Our Priorities to Work
Stimson’s projects are a reflection of our inclusive and nonpartisan approach – and our work is all the better for it. Among some examples putting these priorities to work are:
- Increasing international security is not just geopolitics; it means making communities and people safer. Therefore, making the international arms trade more responsible helps protect disempowered groups from violence. When prevention fails, the Center commits to ameliorating the consequences of conflict on human health, sustainable development, and the safety and well-being of families in former war zones.
- Promoting shared prosperity means we care about more than GDP; we also care about equity. We are working with less wealthy countries to increase their access to the global economy, building tools to help the most vulnerable protect themselves from a changing climate, and increasing access to renewable sources of energy.
- Ensuring fundamental rights, transparency, and accountability is critical to enabling civilian protection and to safeguard justice. In our work that means being a lead convener on atrocity issues and working to protect the rights of civilians caught in conflict areas. We’re strengthening the institutions of international justice and human rights and using transparency to protect the rights of the many millions who live along one of the world’s largest rivers.
- Evaluating the effectiveness and accountability of existing governance structures. At the Stimson Center, we do not just admire or critique the world as it is. Instead, we constantly reevaluate where positive change can be made. Positive change takes many forms for Stimson, from interrogating government spending on the military to applying strategic foresight methods to evaluate risks and opportunities and develop strategies that ensure our policy tools are fit for purpose and serve American interests around the globe.
These activities are a demonstration of Stimson’s commitment to putting our values to work, and to go beyond words to translate key principles into action.
Workforce Demographics
The Stimson Center’s mission is rooted in transparency, both as a method of holding ourselves to public account for the values we claim, and to help further cement norms and values in the broader policy community of which we are a part. This report on Stimson’s workforce demographics is a reflection of our commitment to transparency and accountability.
What is Measured
The report includes aggregate and subgroup data on gender, race and ethnicity, as well as generation. While they may be imperfect, we are using federal government categories for gender and race and ethnicity because they are consistent with existing reporting requirements. Furthermore, we use the Pew Research Center‘s definitions for generations. We acknowledge that these measurements and categories are an incomplete reflection of the diversity of people and experiences.
This report is updated approximately annually. The data in this report are snapshots in time. 2025 data is accurate as of December that year; 2024 data is accurate as of October of that year; 2023 data is accurate as of December of that year; 2022 data is accurate as of December of that year; 2021 data is accurate as of August for staff and board members and November for affiliates.
The 2025 data covers all Stimson Center employees, affiliates of the institution, and our Board of Directors. As of December 2025, the Stimson Center employed 76 people, had 24 Board members, and 66 affiliates. The report does not include the few individuals who did not respond to data collection requests.
Employees
This report organizes employees into groups which generally reflect our management structure and responsibilities:
- Leadership & Management Team (6). The President, Vice Presidents, and Directors of the Communications, Development, Finance, and Human Resources/Administration departments.
- Senior Staff (34). The Directors and Deputy Directors of policy programs.
- Research Staff (29). The staff of policy programs, such as Research Analysts.
- Operations Staff (7). The staff of Communications, Development, Finance, and Human Resources/Administration.
Change over time
Affiliates
Affiliates are people who have a relationship with Stimson but are not employees. There are three groups of affiliates: Adjunct Senior Fellows, Non-Resident Fellows, and Distinguished Senior Fellows/Senior Advisors. They are reported together.
Board of Directors
As the governing body of the Stimson Center, the Board of Directors is responsible for the oversight of all activities of Stimson to ensure sound financial and managerial practice and protect the integrity of the institution, its reputation and projects. Board membership is a volunteer position.