Paul Turner

About Paul Turner

Paul Turner serves the Fund for Peace (FFP) as the President and Executive Director. Previously, he was Chief of Party overseeing a $95M USAID mechanism on Governance and Stabilization in the Middle East and North Africa. Mr. Turner worked closely with FFP as the Technical Director of the USAID Reacting to Early Warning and Response Data (REWARD) project. Over his 25 year career across the national security paradigm, Mr. Turner has worked on more than 90 conflict affected countries and deployed to 45 countries as a diplomat, activist, academic, researcher, and peacebuilder. During his career, he helped launch the National Defense University’s Center for Complex Operations, the interagency Civilian Response Corps, and the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s International Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism Capacity-Building Clearinghouse Mechanism. In addition, he has worked across the programming cycle and led research to frame the USAID Middle East Bureau’s approach to Positive Youth Development in Conflict Contexts, designed conflict, governance, environmental security, and atrocity assessment tools, and promoted vertical and horizontal integration to advance the inclusion of local voices. Mr. Turner is a founding member of the Multi-Disciplinary Expert Resource Group on Rehabilitation and Reintegration and serves on the board of directors of Re-imagining New Communities in Kenya, and the Peace-Led Climate Friendly Sustainable Development Forum. He regularly addresses the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program as an expert on conflict and extremism and supported the U.S. Embassies in Switzerland and Northern Macedonia as a visiting expert in their Countering Violent Extremism Speaker Series. His contributions have been recognized through his selection to join the Center for Strategic and International Studies as a Leadership Fellow, his Fellowship on Governance and Extremism with the Caux Forum, requests to serve as a keynote speaker to events focused on Religious Tolerance and Regional Peacebuilding and a number of awards from the U.S. government and civil society. Mr. Turner is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and holds a Master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the UNESCO sponsored European University Centre for Peace Studies. He continues to remain connected to the academy and has led both graduate and undergraduate courses at American University’s School of International Service and the University of Maryland.

Experience

1. President and Executive Director

   The Fund For Peace

   Jan 2022 — Present · Washington, DC, US

   For over 60 years, The Fund for Peace (FFP) has been a world leader in developing practical tools and approaches for reducing conflict. With a clear focus on the nexus of human security and economic development, FFP contributes to more peaceful and prosperous societies by engineering smarter methodologies and smarter partnerships. FFP empowers policy-makers, practitioners, and populations with context-specific, data-driven applications to diagnose risks and vulnerabilities and to develop solutions through collective dialogue.

Education

• University of Cape Town

  Graduate Studies, Economic Development and Social Change

  1999 — 2000

• Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam

  Graduate Certificate, International Mediation, Negotiation, and Conflict Resolution, 4.0 GPA

  1998 — 1998

• American University

  Graduate Certificate, Health Provision in Conflict Affected Areas, Pass

  2005 — 2005

• The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Honors Program

  Bachelor of Arts (BA); Bachelor of Science (BS), Humanities; Political Science with Minors in Spanish and Economics, 3.92 GPA

  1992 — 1997

• Dobyns - Bennett High School

  High School, Academic, 3.82 GPA

  1988 — 1992

• Universitat Jaume I

  Master's Degree, Peace and Conflict Studies, 4.0 GPA

  1997 — 1997

• Central European University

  Graduate Certificate, Environmental Science and Policy, 4.0 GPA

  1998 — 1998

• European University Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

  Master's Degree, Peace and Conflict Studies, 4.0 GPA

  1995 — 1995