Neil Brown served as Senior Professional Staff Member for energy security at the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and was co-lead for non-proliferation through the Nunn-Lugar Global program. Brown also served as a senior advisor to the Senate’s most senior Republican, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and director his energy initiative. 

Currently, Brown serves on the Board of Directors of The Lugar Center, as a Senior Advisor at Goldwyn Global Strategies, and as a Non-resident Fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Energy Transition Forum and The Lugar Institute for Diplomacy and Congress.

Brown shapes policy to build consensus on real solutions, collaborating with industry, civil society, and government leaders. He authored the most far-reaching energy bill offered in the 112th Congress – Lugar’s Practical Energy Plan and Brown negotiated $800 million for clean energy funding in the 2012 Senate Farm Bill. The Alliance to Save Energy recognized Brown with their “Unsung Hero” award. 

As the lead international energy staffer in the Senate, Brown transformed energy into a major issue of U.S. diplomacy. He spearheaded major laws, including the “Cardin-Lugar Amendment” which required the extractive companies to transparently report payments in all the countries in which they operate. Brown also helped create energy diplomacy legislation that spurred the creation of the State Department Bureau of Energy Resources. 

From 2009 to 2012, Brown also worked closely with Senator Dick Lugar in the expansion of the Nunn-Lugar Global program to eliminate nuclear, chemical, and biological threats. As of June 2012, Nunn-Lugar has destroyed 7,619 nuclear warheads, 2924.7 metric tons of chemical weapons, and constructed 39 biological threat monitoring stations. 

A Rhodes Scholar, Brown promotes education and engagement through serving on the boards of the Association of American Rhodes Scholars, Merton College Charitable Corporation, and Oxbridge Learning Academy. He was an inaugural Washington Fellow of the National Review Institute. He previously worked to document the situation of refugees in Nepal, India, and Egypt and promote IT use in Namibia. Brown regularly gives speeches, is cited in the press, and has co-authored several U.S. Senate reports. 

Brown is a graduate of Harvard University (BA, Magna cum Laude) and Oxford University (MSc, MPhil).  Brown is from Iowa, where his family farm is located.