John Tedstrom

John Tedstrom is the former Chair of the Victory Institute Board of Directors and Vice Chair of One Victory. John is a leader at senior levels in government, academia and business, integrating issues of national security, economics and development, and social justice. He served in the White House where he advised President Clinton on Russia and Ukraine, founded and led major international organizations fighting AIDS and other global maladies, and directed research and taught economics and national security policy at RAND and Columbia University.

From 2003-2012 Dr. Tedstrom helped advance the global fight against HIV/AIDS by founding Transatlantic Partners Against AIDS (TPAA), a unique US-Russian-Ukrainian joint venture whose board included leaders in politics, business, journalism and civil society from all three countries. TPAA’s path-breaking programs raised over a quarter billion dollars between 2003-2006 alone to combat AIDS and promote the human rights of people infected and affected by HIV.

In 2006 TPAA merged with The Global Business Coalition and Tedstrom joined his friend and mentor Richard Holbrooke in the fight against AIDS globally. Under Tedstrom’s leadership the organization doubled in size and expanded its mandate to fight TB, Malaria and other diseases. Tedstrom partnered closely with CEOs around the world, as well as the leaders of the UN, The Global Fund, and governments throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as the U.S. and Europe.

From 1992-2002, Dr. Tedstrom was a senior economist at RAND where he participated in and directed studies on U.S. foreign and economic policy toward the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union. From 1995-1999 he was deputy director of RAND’s National Defense Research Institute (NDRI) where he had responsibility for international economics and the former Soviet region. In 1996 he was appointed to lead the research effort of the Pentagon’s initial Quadrennial Defense Review, which was the first high-level strategy effort to focus on asymmetric (terrorist) threats.

From 1999-2000, Dr. Tedstrom took leave from RAND to serve as a Director on the National Security Council staff at the White House. He coordinated U.S. economic and commercial policy for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia and oversaw policy on Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. He also represented the Administration publicly including to the media.

Dr. Tedstrom serves on the Boards of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS-US), Scouts for Equality, and the Global Business Coalition for Education. He is active in Democratic politics and served on the Foreign Policy Committee, LGBTQ Policy Committee and National Finance Committee for the Obama for President campaign in 2008. He has lived in Munich, Moscow, and Kyiv and earned a Ph.D. in international economics and Russian studies from the University of Birmingham, England. He is the author of dozens of articles; his book, Socialism Perestroika and the Dilemmas of Soviet Economic Reform, was published in 1990. He is certified to teach Primordial Sound Meditation.