Stefanie Hausheer Ali is nonresident fellow with the empowerME Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. Ali is also a director at Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, based in Washington, DC, where she manages clients who are interested in expanding their businesses in key international markets such as the Middle East, China, Europe, and Latin America.

A Middle East specialist, Ali has worked at the Atlantic Council since 2013. She was most recently the deputy director of empowerME at the Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East; this initiative focuses on shaping innovative investments to empower entrepreneurs, women, and the private sector in the Middle East. At the Council, Ali co-founded and managed the WIn (Women Innovators) Fellowship for women entrepreneurs. She also co-founded and produced the empowerME Conversations podcast featuring top entrepreneurs, business leaders, and government officials in the Middle East.

At the Atlantic Council, Ali previously served as project manager for the Iraq Initiative, the Middle East Strategy Task Force, and the Task Force on the Future of Iraq. In these roles, Ali planned and managed hundreds of virtual and in-person events in Washington, DC, Europe, and the Middle East with business executives as well as senior foreign and US government officials. Ali was formerly a research fellow with the King Salman Center for Local Governance in Riyadh, where she studied the impact of Saudi Arabia’s recent higher education initiatives. She was also a graduate research assistant at George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies.

Ali holds a master’s degree in Middle East studies from George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. She graduated summa cum laude with a dual bachelor’s degree in political science and Italian studies from Saint Louis University, where she was a presidential scholar. She is proficient in Arabic and Italian.