Christopher Tuttle

Chris Tuttle is a senior fellow and associate vice president of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), with responsibilities spanning research, programming, and strategy across a broad range of foreign policy and national security topics. In that capacity, he helps direct and manage the program’s more than 80 fellows. He is also a senior advisor for CFR’s Government Affairs staff in Washington, working to ensure that the work of CFR’s experts informs and shapes the thinking of policymakers across the executive branch, Congress, and the foreign diplomatic corps.

Between 2022 and 2024, Tuttle led CFR’s Renewing America Initiative, a program examining the domestic foundations of U.S. power internationally — including technology and innovation, energy, and infrastructure — and their implications for American global leadership and competitiveness.

Prior to that, from 2019 to 2024, he was managing director in the Council’s Corporate Affairs Program, leading CFR’s relationships with a select group of top-tier corporate members and advising Fortune 10, 50, and 500 clients on geopolitical risk, federal policy, and international affairs.

Earlier in his career, from 2015 to 2019, Tuttle was policy director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s majority staff under Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN). In that role, he supervised the committee’s subject matter experts in their work to advise the chairman, conduct hearings, oversee the U.S. government’s international affairs agencies, confirm executive branch nominees, and negotiate and craft legislation. During his tenure, the committee passed into law the first State Department Authorization in fourteen years, as well as significant new sanctions on Iran, North Korea, and Russia. He also directed the planning and execution of more than 150 hearings and classified briefings, including confirmation hearings for hundreds of executive branch nominees and two secretaries of state.

Before his time in the Senate, from 2008 to 2015, Tuttle held two directorships at CFR — leading the Washington Program and the Independent Task Force Program. In the latter role, he worked with groups of top experts to produce analysis and recommendations on issues of critical importance to U.S. foreign policy. As Washington Program director, he oversaw CFR’s Government Affairs team and managed the Council’s Washington staff in its work to provide substantive content to CFR members and the broader policy community.

Tuttle first joined CFR from the U.S. Department of State, where he was a political appointee from 2006 to 2008. Before that, from 1999 to 2006, he worked in the U.S. House of Representatives as chief of staff and senior policy advisor to Representative Mark Green (R-WI), then an assistant majority whip who sat on the International Relations and Financial Services Committees. His legislative experience also includes several years as a senior leadership staff member in two state legislatures.

Tuttle holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College, and a diploma from the College of Naval Command and Staff. He has also done graduate study at Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, and the National Defense University.