Brian Brennan is the Leadership Group’s Senior Vice President of Research & Strategic Initiatives, and leads all the Foundation’s policy research efforts.

His previous roles in the Leadership Group family have included director of the Foundation’s Emerging Tech Policy Initiative, and head of membership development.

Prior to joining the organization in 2008, Brian worked on political development programs for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Russia, and served with international affairs nonprofits in California, Texas and Mexico. He currently serves on the Board of California Common Cause and the Development Committee of the Catholic Community Foundation.

Brian’s writing has been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, the Silicon Valley Business Journal and America Magazine. He has served widely as a speaker and moderator in discussions of tech policy, including at UC Davis, UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, and various industry events. In 2011, Brian was named to the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 list of young Silicon Valley leaders to watch. In 2019, he was selected for Harvard Business School’s Young American Leaders Program.

Brian has a DPhil in Comparative Government from the University of Oxford, and related degrees from Princeton and Stanford. A Monterey County native, Brian now lives in downtown San Jose with his wife, Wendy, and their three children.