William Stadden Cole, Ph.D.

William Cole currently serves as senior fellow and senior advisor at the Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California (CCWA). His career has included appointments in government, non-profit, and academic sectors where he has worked in a range of areas including politics, economic development, international relations, impact of emerging technologies, and anthropology. His approach to understanding history and current affairs, as well as policy research and policy dialogue, has been distinctly transdisciplinary.

Dr Cole’s core focus in recent years has been on two main areas effecting economic growth and stability in Asia:  the impact of disruptive technologies on Asian economies, political systems, and security; and the future of advanced middle-income countries in an era of rapid economic change and strategic competition. He spent 2023 at Australian National University (Coral Bell School) conducting research on these two topics.

From 1998 to early 2024, Dr. Cole served as a senior director and later senior advisor for program strategy at the Asia Foundation with responsibilities for exploration and development of innovative programming and strategic planning in democracy and governance, law, urban and local development, and the influence of technological changes in Asia. From January 2002, he was resident in Afghanistan for the year, restarting the Asia Foundation office and programs working closely with UNAMA and the nascent Afghan government. He has authored and co-authored numerous reports and policy papers and has been a frequent speaker on topics related to Asian development, governance reform, technology and development, Afghanistan, and the political economy of social and economic reform.

Prior to joining The Asia Foundation in 1996, Dr. Cole served for a decade in USAID, first in Indonesia and then in Washington, D.C. In the Bureau for the Near East, he established and managed the new Governance and Democracy Program immediately following the first Gulf War, while also overseeing the Palestinian aid program. In the Bureau for Europe and the Newly Independent States (former Soviet Union), he worked closely with the State Department, establishing and managing a strategic planning unit tasked with trying to better integrate U.S. democracy and economic assistance.

Education:  B.S. degree in Natural Sciences and Mathematics from Washington & Lee University;  M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Cultural Anthropology from Washington University in St Louis.