Morgan Ortagus

Morgan Ortagus is a seasoned business executive, distinguished public policy and communications professional, and an active officer in the U.S. Navy Reserves. From 2019 to 2021, she served at the Department of State as the Spokesperson for the United States of America. In February 2021, Ortagus co-founded Rubicon Founders, a leading healthcare investment firm, alongside Adam Boehler.

A veteran of both the Obama and Bush Administrations, Ortagus was sworn in as U.S. State Department Spokesperson on April 3, 2019, for her third tour of duty in the executive branch. During this time, she worked closely with the White House on the historic Abraham Accords that brought peace deals between Israel and UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan. As Spokesperson, she developed strategic communications plans for every area of U.S. foreign policy. Traveling with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo to more than 50 nations, she coordinated messaging campaigns and responses to sensitive and high-profile foreign policy actions, from hostage negotiations to the U.S. campaign against Huawei’s 5G expansion in the West. She led U.S. government efforts to push back against sophisticated disinformation campaigns from China, Russia, and Iran, and played a key role in the United States’ determination of the Chinese government’s genocide against the Uyghurs.

In addition to her role at Rubicon Founders, Ortagus is the founder of POLARIS National Security and hosts "The Morgan Ortagus Show" on SiriusXM Radio. Previously, she founded Ernst & Young’s Geostrategic Business Group, was a Global Relationship Manager at Standard Chartered Bank covering clients in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, and pioneered a new political risk analysis suite for Ernst & Young’s largest corporate clients. Ortagus began her government service as a public affairs officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she spent several months in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2007. From 2008-2010, she was an intelligence analyst at the U.S. Treasury in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, and in 2010, she was assigned to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as the Deputy U.S. Treasury Attaché, serving as the principal liaison from the U.S. Treasury to the banking sector in Saudi Arabia.

Ortagus holds a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, cum laude, from Florida Southern College, and graduated from Johns Hopkins University in May 2013 with a dual Master of Business Administration/Master of Arts in Government. She currently lives in Nashville, TN with her husband, Jonathan, and their daughter, Adina.