The new chief operating officer of the Institute of World Politics brings a career of success in business, law, diplomacy and scholarship to helm the continued growth and stature of the school.
Frank A. Orban, III came aboard the Institute of World Politics as Executive Vice President and General Counsel earlier this month. “Joining the ranks of the Institute is an honor and an exciting challenge,” he says. And he’s someone who likes challenges, having gone head-to-head with Soviet nuclear missile negotiators and winning, and building successful international companies.
Taking the day-to-day helm of the Institute, he says, “is an opportunity to return to an academic setting while applying the various skills I have developed in the course of my legal, business and government career. I look forward to assisting in a significant expansion of the Institute as it continues to prepare students in the ever-more critical areas of statecraft, national security and foreign relations.”
Before coming to IWP, Mr. Orban was a member of a Washington international trade law firm where he represented clients engaged foreign investment around the world, and represented international entities here in the US.
Earlier he served as general counsel of various major companies including News International, publisher of the Times of London.
President Ronald Reagan tapped his professional experience and his knowledge of the Soviet Union and China, appointing him as one of the senior negotiators in the US-Soviet Nuclear Arms & Space Talks in Geneva.
Mr. Orban was an instructor in private international and comparative law at the University of Virginia Law School as well as a frequent lecturer on international business, lawand foreign policy at universities and conferences around the world. Earlier in his career he served as Assistant Attorney General of the Government of Swaziland.
A graduate of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, he is a member of the leadership of a number of professional and civic associations. He is married to Gillian Anne Orban of Sydney, Australia and has two children.
