Kenneth R. Weinstein (born November 4, 1961) is the Walter P. Stern Distinguished Fellow at Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington-based policy research organization. From 2005, he served as CEO of Hudson Institute, and from April 2011 until January 2021 was Hudson's President and CEO. Weinstein has been noted as an expert on U.S. foreign policy and international affairs who has commented on national and international affairs on television and in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, Yomiuri Shimbun and Le Monde. Career Weinstein began his career as a researcher at Hudson Institute, before taking positions at the New Citizenship Project, the Shalem Center and the Heritage Foundation. He rejoined Hudson in 1999, serving as director of Hudson's Washington office and its COO before taking over as CEO in 2005. Under Weinstein's leadership, Hudson Institute grew significantly in size and impact, building ties to elected and appointed officials on both sides of the aisle in the US and around the world and becoming one of Washington's most influential think tanks. During his tenure as President and CEO, Hudson nearly tripled its annual budget to $20 million and quintupled its endowment to $60 million. Among the many noted experts Weinstein recruited to Hudson are Walter Russell Mead, Michael Pillsbury, H. R. McMaster, Elaine Chao, Nadia Schadlow, Patrick Cronin and Christopher DeMuth. In addition to his work at Hudson Institute, Weinstein was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the US Senate in 2006 to serve on the National Council for the Humanities, the board which oversees the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2013, he was nominated by President Obama to serve on the Broadcasting Board of Governors (now the U.S. Agency for Global Media), the agency which oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and other government broadcasting programs. Weinstein was later elected by his fellow governors as chairman of the BBG in 2017, a position in which he served until 2020. In September 2018, he was appointed to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations by President Trump. Nomination as U.S. Ambassador to Japan On March 13, 2020, President Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate Weinstein as the next U.S. Ambassador to Japan. Given Weinstein's policy expertise, his nomination received strong bipartisan support, including from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, former Vice Presidents Walter Mondale and Dan Quayle, former Directors