Securing Our Energy Future: Reducing America's Reliance on Foreign Oil

Securing Our Energy Future:
Reducing America's Reliance on Foreign Oil

Thursday, April 26th

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Speaker Biographies

Robbie Diamond is the founder, president, and CEO of Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE). In 2006, he came together with Frederick W. Smith, chairman, president, and CEO of FedEx Corporation, and General P.X. Kelley, USMC (Ret.), 28th Commandant of the Marine Corps, to form SAFE’s Energy Security Leadership Council (ESLC), a group of prominent business leaders and retired senior military officers dedicated to combating the nation’s dangerous dependence on oil. Mr. Diamond is also the president and CEO of the Electrification Coalition, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit group founded in 2009, which consists of business leaders committed to promoting policies and actions that facilitate the deployment of electric vehicles on a mass scale in order to combat the economic, environmental, and national security dangers caused by the nation’s dependence on petroleum. Prior to his roles with SAFE and the Electrification Coalition, Mr. Diamond served as deputy director of community outreach on Senator Joe Lieberman’s 2004 presidential campaign. Before that, Mr. Diamond was a director at the Washington firm Fontheim International LLC, working in all practice areas of the firm. Prior to coming to Washington, he worked with senior executives at Seagram Spirits and Wine Group on special projects. Mr. Diamond earned an Honours B.A. in Peace and Conflict Studies and Political Science from the University of Toronto as well as an M.A. in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School.

Mike Granoff is the head of oil independence policies at Better Place, a company that develops and sells transportation infrastructure that supports electric vehicles. He is also the founder of Maniv Investments, LLC, parent of Maniv Bioventures and Maniv Energy Capital. Prior to founding Maniv, Mr. Granoff served as a national constituency coordinator for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign. Since 1985, he has co-managed Val d'Or Farms, which breeds and races trotting and pacing horses throughout the U.S. and Canada. He has served on the boards of several non-profit organizations including Securing America's Future Energy (SAFE), Israel Cleantech Ventures, Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, and a division of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Mr. Granoff received his B.A. from Tufts University and his J.D. and M.B.A. from the Kellogg School and Northwestern University's School of Law.

Robert Zarate is the policy director at the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI). Prior to joining FPI, Mr. Zarate served as a legislative assistant to a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, focusing on foreign affairs, national security, immigration, and appropriations issues, and earlier as a legislative fellow on the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade. Before serving on the Hill, he worked as a research fellow at the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center; as an independent consultant on nuclear issues; as a reporter at Wired News, reporting on the intersections of national security, technology, politics, law, and business; and as a policy analyst at Steptoe & Johnson LLP in Washington, D.C., where he focused on issues pertaining to e-commerce and international controls related to the import, export, and use of encryption and other dual-use items. Mr. Zarate co-edited Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter, a volume of enduring and timely writings on nuclear-age strategy by two of America's most controversial, innovative, and consequential strategists.  He has also published essays and articles in The Weekly Standard, National Review, U.S. News & World Report, E-Commerce Law Week, and other periodicals. Mr. Zarate received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Chicago.