Ambassador Robert O’Brien served as the 28th United States National Security Advisor from 2019 to 2021. He is currently the chairman of GTI’s US-Taiwan Task Force. Previously, he served as the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, with the personal rank of Ambassador, from 2018 to 2019. Ambassador O’Brien’s previous government posts include service as US Alternate Representative to the United Nations General Assembly; Co-Chairman of the State Department’s Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan; and as a Member of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee. A practicing attorney in Los Angeles for over three decades, Ambassador O’Brien holds degrees from the University of California-Berkeley School of Law and the University of California-Los Angeles. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps, with the rank of Major.