FORMER U.S. DEP. ASST. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE JOINS ARCANUM GLOBAL

Recipient of Secretary of Defence Medal for Exceptional Public Service to serve as Senior Advisor 

Zurich/London/Washington, DC, May 18, 2015 – Arcanum, a strategic global intelligence firm and an RJI Capital company, announced today that James Clad has joined Arcanum as Senior Advisor to the CEO. The former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense comes to Arcanum with 25 years of senior defense/foreign policy formulation and implementation experience, and energy consulting, from broad policy to specific outcomes. He currently serves as Senior Advisor for Asia at the CNA (Center for Naval Analyses) Corporation, in Arlington Virginia; he was previously with the National Defense University in Washington, DC, where he mentored defense and security officials from the Maghreb to the Near East, Turkey, the Gulf, and South Asia. 

As U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs from 2007 to 2009, Mr. Clad crafted defense and security policy in Asia and Australasia, coordinating combatant command relationships for over 25 Asian countries. He negotiated armed services support and logistic agreements with India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, and led Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) negotiations with several major countries.

Mr. Clad received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service in 2009 and, in 2011, was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM), a royal honor.

“I have known James Clad for many years and have had the privilege of working with him both during his tenure at the Department of Defense and whilst he was a White House detailee to Iraq in 2003,” said Ron Wahid, CEO of RJI Capital, Arcanum’s parent company. “We are very pleased to have him on our team.”

“It’s a distinct privilege to join Ron and his colleagues in their fast-rising global intelligence firm,” Mr. Clad said in Washington, DC, where he is based.

Before joining the Defense Department, Mr. Clad had served as Senior Counselor and Director for Middle Eastern Affairs at the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) where he worked on OPIC business development in the Caucasus and the Middle East.  

This followed a stint in 2003 on White House detail in Iraq, prior to which he served as Senior Counselor at the U.S. Agency for International Development, developing foreign assistance policy for a $15 billion annual aid budget and working to harmonize this with Australian, British, German and Japanese funding for Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iraq, Pakistan and Sudan. 

From 1997 to 2002, Mr. Clad was Director for Asia-Pacific Energy at Cambridge Research Associates, where he briefed clientele on Asia Pacific energy and risk issues including evolution, personnel and direction of national oil companies. This coincided with a Luce Foundation professorship of South and Southeast Asian Studies, at Georgetown University in Washington.  

At Georgetown, Mr. Clad taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Asian political economy and international politics, as well as testifying before the US Congress, writing presented policy papers, and teaching an annual Wharton Business School series on Southeast Asian capitalism.

Mr. Clad received his LLB (Hons) degree from the University of Auckland, and previously a Bachelor of Arts from Victoria University of Wellington. 

 About Arcanum

Arcanum, a wholly-owned subsidiary of RJI Capital Holdings, is a global intelligence firm that provides a host of bespoke and tailored strategic intelligence products to government entities and the private sector across a range of industries. By maintaining a highly diversified intelligence and business network around the globe, Arcanum’s industry-leading global resources and technical expertise are delivered from its offices in Washington, DC, London, Paris, Zurich, New York and Hong Kong. For further information, go to www.arcanumglobal.com or contact Yael Hartmann, Vice President of the Strategic Communications Group, at hartmann@arcanumglobal.com.

Arcanum Contact

Yael Hartmann: hartmann@arcanumglobal.com