Clementine Starling-Daniels is a national security expert with more than a decade of experience at the intersection of defense, emerging technologies, and strategic government engagement. She is widely recognized for connecting cutting-edge private sector innovation with the U.S. and allied national security communities, and for shaping strategies that advance deterrence, defense, and the capabilities of the joint warfighter.
She is currently a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and serves as an advisor on revitalizing the maritime industrial base and U.S. wartime production efforts, helping to align public- and private-sector capabilities to strengthen U.S. defense.
Previously, Clementine served as the founding director of the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program, where she built and led a high-performing team dedicated to shaping the future of warfare. Over several years, she managed multimillion-dollar budgets, successfully fundraised, and led a team to deliver policy-shaping work. Under Clementine’s leadership, Forward Defense launched two high-profile bipartisan commissions—on Defense Innovation Adoption and Software Defined Warfare—that advanced defense acquisition reform and accelerated the integration of emerging technologies such as AI, hypersonics, autonomous, and space systems. In this role, she worked closely with the Department of Defense’s Offices of Acquisition & Sustainment and Research & Engineering, the U.S. military services, and combatant commands.
Clementine’s expertise spans the integration of advanced technologies into defense concepts and operations, the role of U.S. production and manufacturing innovation in strengthening the defense industrial base, and long-term strategy for U.S. competition with China and Russia. She has also worked extensively with the special operations and space communities, advancing how innovation—including commercial space launch and situational awareness—can enable missions in contested environments.
Earlier in her career, Clementine served as deputy director of the Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative, focusing on NATO and European defense. She managed high-level task forces on U.S. force posture, military mobility, contested logistics, and Arctic security, and supported NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division during the Brussels, Washington DC, and London Summits. In this role, she developed a strong understanding of NATO processes and the EU regulatory environment related to transatlantic defense cooperation and industry engagement.
Before moving to Washington, she worked in the UK Parliament, supporting two Members of Parliament on legislative issues related to infrastructure, technology policy, supply chain resilience, and defense.
Her analysis and commentary have been featured in Defense News, Defense One, the BBC, NPR, Real Clear Defense, Space News, Air and Space Forces Magazine, the National Interest, ABC News, and Government Matters, among others. She is a frequent speaker and moderator at international security forums.
Clementine graduated with honors from the London School of Economics with a B.Sc. in International Relations and History, and holds an M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, where she was a Herbert Roback Scholar and a Rumsfeld Graduate Fellow.