Jonathan Tepperman

Jonathan Tepperman is an author and journalist. He was appointed Managing Editor of Foreign Affairs—the magazine published by the New York–based Council on Foreign Relations—in February 2011.

Tepperman was first hired by Foreign Affairs in 1998 by Fareed Zakaria (then Managing Editor) and spent several years at the magazine as a junior editor before moving on to Newsweek. There he was Deputy Editor for the international edition, ran (at various times) the Asia, Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Latin America sections, and wrote cover stories, opinion pieces, and a style column. He has also worked in political-risk consulting, as a reporter in Israel, and as a speechwriter for Morris B. Abram, a former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council.

John Tepperman with Senator John McCain at the Halifax International Security Forum 2014

Tepperman writes frequently for a range of publications. In 2013, he was a guest columnist for the International New York Times (formerly the International Herald Tribune). Apart for his column and his writing for Foreign Affairs, he has published analytic essays, profiles, Op-Eds, interviews, and book reviews in The New York Times and New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The New Republic, and many other newspapers and magazines. He is the co-editor of The U.S. vs Al Qaeda: A History of the War on Terror (2011), The Clash of Ideas: The Ideological Battles That Made the Modern World and Will Shape the Future (2011), and Iran and the Bomb: Solving the Persian Puzzle (2012).

He is a frequent media commentator on international affairs, appearing on CNN, MSNBC, the BBC, Fox News, NPR, Globo, and other networks, as well as radio, including The Brian Lehrer Show and The Diane Rehm Show.

Tepperman regularly conducts interviews with global leaders for Foreign Affairs magazine and the Halifax International Security Forum. Recent interviewees include Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, Turkish President Abdullah Gül, Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and US Senator John McCain.

In 2016, Tepperman delivered a TED Talk on the risky politics of progress.

In September 2016, Tepperman published the critically acclaimed THE FIX: HOW NATIONS SURVIVE AND THRIVE IN A WORLD IN DECLINE. The book reveals often-overlooked good news stories in public policy, identifying ten pervasive and seemingly impossible challenges—including immigration reform, economic stagnation, political gridlock, corruption, and Islamic terrorism—and shows that, contrary to the general consensus, “each of these problems has a solution, and not just a theoretical one. . . . They’ve all been tried, and they work. The trick is knowing where to look for them.”

The New York Times Book Review wrote it was a “An indispensable handbook. . . . Smart and agile. . . . The timing of this book could not be better. . . . Tepperman goes into impressive detail in each case study and delivers assessments in clear, pared-down prose.” Among other accolades, THE FIX was on the Financial Times “Best Business Books of 2016 Longlist” and was a Kirkus Starred Review.

Tepperman has a BA in English Literature from Yale University and law degrees from Oxford and NYU. He is Vice Chairman of the Halifax International Security Forum and a Fellow of the New York Institute of Humanities. Born and raised in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, he lives in Brooklyn with his family.