Dr. Alan Dupont AO

Founder & CEO, Cognoscenti Group

Dr. Alan Dupont AO is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Cognoscenti Group, a political and strategic risk consultancy. He is also Defence and National Security Advocate for the Northern Territory Government. One of Australia’s best-known strategists he has an international reputation for his expertise on geopolitical risk, defence and national security having worked extensively at the interface of security, politics, business and technology.


Alan has held many board and advisory positions in government and the corporate sector including with the Northern Territory Government, Asia Society, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Outcomes Australia and CQS - a prominent European Hedge Fund. He has advised several Australian ministers of defence and foreign affairs and in 2013/14 he established and led the Abbott Government’s Defence White Paper team. Alan has received commendations for his work from the Foreign Minister of Japan and the President of Timor-Leste and was named by the Australian Financial Review as one of Australia’s leading strategists. In 2019, he was made an Officer in the Order of Australia for “distinguished service to the international community through security analysis and strategic policy development.”

Following 25 years of service in government as an Army officer, intelligence analyst and diplomat Alan distinguished himself as an academic entrepreneur and scholar. The author of nearly 100 books, monographs and articles on defence and international security, his path breaking study of the non-military, transnational challenges to East Asia’s security for Cambridge University Press (East Asia Imperilled) is generally acknowledged to be one of the authoritative academic works in the field. Alan held joint professorial appointments in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Business School at the University of NSW from 2012-16. Prior to that (2006-12) he was the inaugural holder of the Michael Hintze Chair in International Security at the University of Sydney, Director of the Centre for International Security Studies and start-up CEO of the United States Studies Centre.

Alan is a columnist and Contributing National Security Editor for The Australian newspaper and frequently comments on defence and security issues for the media. He has been interviewed for most Asian dailies as well as leading newspapers in the US and Europe including the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Le Monde and the Wall Street Journal. Alan holds a PhD in international relations from the Australian National University and is a graduate of the Royal Military College Duntroon and the US Foreign Service Institute. He is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington and the Lowy Institute in Sydney.

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