John Watts
John is an experienced international affairs expert and management consultant who has experience working across the government, military, consulting, tech, start-up and think-tank sectors in Australia and the United States.
John began his career with 12 years in the Australian Army Reserves, ending his time in uniform with two years on exchange with the Virginia National Guard. He previously worked for Vice-Chief of the Defence Force and HQ Joint Operations Command in the Australian Department of Defense, and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon. He led the formalization of the Young Strategic Leaders program at the Institute for Regional Security in Australia, and has spent nearly a decade as a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He has a long track record of researching and writing influential papers on emerging technologies such as the importance of trusted global 5G networks; the geo-political implications of hypersonic weapons in the Indo-Pacific; and the threat of disinformation to national sovereignty as well as designing and running innovative and high-profile war games to explore long-term great-power competitive technology strategies; future Army concepts of operations; alternate cybersecurity challenges; election integrity; and complex Baltic, Indo-Pacific and Middle East security issues.
He has been a partner at a defense technology consulting firm and head of consulting at a boutique strategy consulting firm. He has consulted on numerous complex emerging issues for a range of federal, state, international and foreign government organizations, as well as large corporations and prestigious universities. He is currently the Strategic Partnership Manager at Zignal Labs, an AI-driven open-source intelligence tech firm.
Watts holds a Master of International Law from the Australian National University and Honours of Arts in international studies from the University of Adelaide, Australia.