Aysha Chowdhry is a Senior Advisor at The Asia Group, where she works closely with the company’s clients and leadership on matters related to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), with a particular focus on Saudi Arabia.
Previously, she was a Senior Director at Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC for nearly a decade. RHGM is a strategic consulting firm founded by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. Aysha has experience assisting CEOs and senior executives from Fortune 50 companies to early-stage startups in meeting key strategic and regulatory challenges in international markets including China, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Before joining RHGM, Aysha worked as a Professional Staff Member for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee covering South and Central Asia for then Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ). At the committee, she covered U.S. foreign policy and foreign assistance in South and Central Asia, specifically Afghanistan and Pakistan. Previously, she was the Special Assistant to the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where she received a Special Act Award. Prior to her time at USAID, she worked as a Research Analyst and Publications Manager at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. She started her career working at the World Bank.
Ms. Chowdhry received her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was the Executive Editor of the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal and earned a Certificate in Refugees, Migration, and Humanitarian Emergencies. She holds a B.A. from Northwestern University and an M.A. from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
She is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Board Member of The Citizens Foundation (DC Chapter), a nonprofit that provides affordable primary and secondary private education to low-income students in Pakistan.