In The Tanks: Joy Drucker Joins CNP

Saturday, October 1, 2005

By Gregg Sangillo, National Journal

October 1, 2005

Joy Drucker was exposed to other cultures as a child in Chicago, and she's been able to build that experience into a career in Washington. "I was encouraged, as a young person, to be interested in foreign places, peoples, and cultures -- it just stuck," she says. In her new job as executive director of the Center for National Policy, Drucker will also serve as senior international-affairs adviser. She earned both of her degrees in London, getting a bachelor's from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a master's from King's College.

Drucker has worked on foreign policy in a number of Washington posts: She was a foreign-policy adviser in the personal and leadership office of then-House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt; she worked on Middle East issues in the legislative-affairs shop at the State Department during the Clinton administration; and, most recently, she did international consulting as a vice president with Stonebridge International, which is chaired by former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger. She has also served as deputy director of the Washington office of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Center for National Policy has a relatively low profile. But in October 2003, the small think tank brought in a well-known figure, former Rep. Timothy Roemer, D-Ind., to head the organization. Roemer also served on the 9/11 commission and made an unsuccessful bid to chair the Democratic National Committee. Drucker, who will serve as CNP's No. 2, was brought in to assist in the center's development and long-term planning, as well as to manage its day-to-day operations. "We want to grow the center," she says, possibly by expanding the staff.

Drucker, 37, says that one advantage of working in the think-tank world at her level is, "Not only are you encouraged, but your central function -- your value -- is to express your views [and] put forward your ideas. You're free to speak your mind."

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