Nick Zahn -  Former Guest Speaker at the Leadership Institute

Nick Zahn’s primary responsibility at The Heritage Foundation is to advance American leadership and national security by promoting the organization’s policy agenda through relationships with international media and opinion makers.

Zahn also serves as liaison to Asian embassies and communicates Heritage’s mission and effectiveness in promoting conservative values to its members in Asia and to Asian-American communities in the metropolitan Washington area.

To assist international media as Asian communications associate, Zahn works with the think tank’s foreign policy team as well as with experts in domestic and economic policy, legal studies and government relations. Journalists from overseas often report on a range of Heritage initiatives and seek to understand America’s founding principles.

As director of the Washington Roundtable for the Asia-Pacific Press (WRAPP), Zahn manages the largest organization of Asia and Pacific news media in the United States from his office in Heritage’s Asian Studies Center.

WRAPP provides greater access not only to Heritage experts but to Washington policy and decision makers who visit the think tank. It regularly sponsors news-related events tailored to the interests and needs of U.S.-based Asia and Pacific journalists and makes resources available to those working overseas.

Heritage created WRAPP in 1994. Membership, which was about 300 in 2008, grew within three years under Zahn’s direction to more than 2,200 representatives of print and broadcast outlets and international wire services.

Zahn has 15 years of experience in building relationships and managing personnel, projects and programs. Before joining Heritage in 2008, his consulting and non-profit work included campaign management, government relations, fundraising and communications for issue advocacy groups.

Zahn holds a bachelor of arts degree in history from the University of Wisconsin. While an undergrad, he started what would grow into two successful small businesses. Upon selling that venture in 2003, he backpacked through Asia for the better part of a year.

Zahn’s professional overseas experience ranges from providing boardroom briefings to advisory roles in more austere conditions. He has observed elections and polling.

In 2010, Zahn received the Global Leadership Award given jointly by the Bow Group, the Leadership Institute and the World Congress of Families at the International School of Fundraising, Wellington College, Berkshire, Crowthorne, United Kingdom.

He is a member of Friends of Mongolia and the Capitol Hill Running Club and is a volunteer for the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. He has homes in Wisconsin and Washington, D.C.

Nick Zahn