Atlantic Council

Biography

Steven Grundman

Steven Grundman is the M.A. and George Lund fellow for emerging defense challenges with the Council's Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. His practice addresses over-the-horizon challenges facing the transatlantic defense establishment; its militaries, ministries, and industries. Named after George Lund and his father, M.A. Lund, the fellowship is a new initiative of the Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, of which George Lund serves as vice chair.

Mr. Grundman is also the principal of Grundman Advisory, a professional services company that guides strategic management in public, private, and nonprofit organizations. Before founding that firm, Mr. Grundman was a vice president at Charles River Associates, a global business consultancy, where he was director of aerospace & defense consulting and of transportation consulting. Mr. Grundman had general management responsibility for building the company's multi-million dollar line of business with aerospace and defense companies and for sustaining its world-class brand in travel demand forecasting. During his ten years at CRA, Mr. Grundman supervised over 170 engagements with dozens of companies in North America and Europe. The work contributed to clients’ regulatory strategies, corporate and business development initiatives, mergers and acquisitions, and investment choices. His tenure at CRA was distinguished by thought-leadership about the strategic challenges facing the A&D industry.

In the 1990s, Mr. Grundman served in a succession of appointments at the US Department of Defense culminating in his assignment as deputy under secretary for industrial affairs and installations. Mr. Grundman monitored critical industrial capabilities, evaluated corporate mergers and acquisitions, and served on the Defense Acquisition Board. He spearheaded the department’s initiative to better integrate the industrial bases of the US and Europe, and coordinated the priority allocation of industrial resources in support of NATO’s operations in Kosovo. Mr. Grundman also led department-wide reforms aimed at competing commercial activities, eliminating inadequate military housing, and implementing the realignment and closure of military bases.

Earlier in his tenure at the DoD, Mr. Grundman served as special assistant to William J. Lynn, the director of program analysis & evaluation. Mr. Grundman coordinated the political and legislative aspects of the directorate’s work and prepared its formal communications about the Future Years Defense Program to the Defense Resource Board, the public, Congress, and the White House. He also was a principal architect of the first Quadrennial Defense Review and of the Defense Reform Initiative.

Prior to these assignments, Mr. Grundman worked as special assistant to Robert J. Murray, the president and CEO of the CNA Corporation, a Washington think tank, where he led a series of initiatives to transform the post-cold-war relevance of the company. Mr. Grundman served in the US Foreign Service at Ottawa, where he performed a variety of consular and diplomatic duties. He also was an officer in the US Army's 1st Armored Division at Ansbach, West Germany, where he led a surveillance platoon and served as battalion adjutant.

He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and holds a masters in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

He can be contacted at sgrundman@acus.org or by calling (202) 599-8610.