Ian Klaus

About Ian Klaus

Ian Klaus was a senior fellow on global cities and foreign policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He also serves as director of research and policy for the Global Parliament of Mayors and as the series editor of the AR6 Summary for Urban Policymakers. Previously, he served as a diplomatic adviser to the Urban 20 and C40 City Climate Leadership Group, and as a consultant to the U.S. National Intelligence Council on global urban trends. 

He was senior adviser for global cities at the US Department of State. In that role, he led urban diplomacy for the United States, engaging dozens of foreign ministries and development agencies from Africa, South America, North America, Asia, and Europe on urbanization and foreign policy issues. He also internally managed the State Department's efforts to develop urbanization-related policies. Klaus was deputy United States negotiator for the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Development.

From 2011 - 2017, he served as member of the policy planning staff in the office of the Secretary of State, advising the Secretary of State and Director of Policy Planning. He has been a member of the World Economic Forum's advisory board on the future of urban development, the Creative Cities Working Group at Stanford University, a visiting fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Ernest May Fellow for History and Security Studies at the Kennedy School of Government. He is currently the chair of the advisory board for The Pattis Family Foundation Global Cities Book Award. He holds a Ph.D. in international history from Harvard University, and is the author of The Belt and Road City (Yale, forthcoming in 2023 with co-author), Forging Capitalism (Yale, 2014) and Elvis is Titanic (Knopf, 2007).