William Cole currently serves as Senior Fellow and Advisor to the President at the Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California (CCWA), and as Advisor to the AI Asia Pacific Institute in Singapore. His career has included appointments in government, non-profit, and academic sectors where he has worked in a range of areas including politics, economic development, international relations, impact of emerging technologies, and anthropology. His approach to understanding history and current affairs, as well as policy research and policy dialogue, has been distinctly transdisciplinary. Dr Cole’s core focus in recent years has been on two main areas effecting economic growth and stability in Asia: the impact of disruptive technologies on Asian economies, political systems, and security; and the future of Advanced Middle-Income Countries in an era of rapid economic change and strategic competition. He spent the year of 2023 as Visiting Fellow at Australian National University (Coral Bell School) conducting research on these two topics.
