Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich

The Honourable Jeff Bleich is a Distinguished Ambassadorial Fellow at the United States Studies Centre. He is a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and serves by appointment of President Biden as a member of the National Security Education Board. He previously served as the US Ambassador to Australia from 2009 to 2013, as Special Counsel to President Obama in the White House, and as a Senior Advisor to the Director of National Intelligence.

A specialist in digital technology and complex dispute resolution, he has been a federally appointed Special Master, a Partner at both Munger, Tolles & Olson and Dentons, and the Chief Legal Officer at Cruise LLC. Following law school, he clerked for the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court as well as for both the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal and the International Court of Justice in The Hague. He has been regularly listed as one of the United States' 500 most influential lawyers, and in 2024 was honored as a "Legend in the Law" at the Library of Congress..

Ambassador Bleich has served as the Board Chair of PG&E Corp, in the U.S., and Board Chair, of Nuix Ltd. in Australia. He served (three times) as Chair of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board by appointment of President Obama, and on the Executive Committee of the East West Center Board by appointment of Secretary John Kerry. He also serves on the board of RAND Australia, and the Steering Committee of National Security Leaders for America (NSL4A). He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Law Institute. Ambassador Bleich previously served as the Chair of the California State University Board of Trustees, Trustee of Amherst College, President of the California State Bar, and President of the Bar Association of San Francisco. Flinders University has named the Jeff Bleich Centre on Democracy and Disruptive Technologies in his honor.

In 2008, San Francisco named January 8 (Elvis Presley's' Birthday), "Jeff Bleich Day" in San Francisco.