Jane Wales is president and CEO of the World Affairs Council of Northern California.
She has authored numerous articles and monographs on international security, nuclear weapons policy and philanthropy. Wales held a dual appointment in the Clinton Administration as Senior Director of the National Security Council and Associate Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where her office was responsible for developing policy on the disposition of advanced weapons materials. In the Carter Administration, Wales served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and as White House Coordinator of Public Liaison.

Prior to entering government service, Wales chaired the international security program at the Carnegie Corporation of New York. In that position, she formed a consortium of scholars and policymakers, who devised a framework for post-Cold War security, which led to the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Before joining the Carnegie Corporation, Wales directed the international security program at the W. Alton Jones Foundation in Charlottesville, Virginia. She also served as Director of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund's Project on World Security, where she conducted a two-year study of modern-day threats to and requirements of national security. From 1982-88, she was the National Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, which shared in the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

In 2001, Wales co-founded the Global Philanthropy Forum, a network of over 500 individual donors with family foundations who are committed to international causes. Now a project of the Council, the forum seeks to inform, enable and enhance the strategic nature of international giving. The forum hosts annual conferences on borderless giving as well as programming for philanthropists throughout the year.

Wales is the host of the Council's weekly KQED Radio show, It's Your World, which is syndicated across the country over the National Public Radio System. She has interviewed governmental policy makers, private sector executives, philanthropic leaders and scholars from all corners of the world. Wales also frequently appears as an analyst on radio, television and in the print media and trade press. She serves on the boards of non-profit organizations and grant-making foundations, and has served as an advisor to U.S. government agencies.

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