Jake Sullivan, who currently serves as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, is poised to assume the director of policy planning position, two State Department officials have revealed.
Sullivan will be taking over from Anne-Marie Slaughter, who is set to return to Princeton University by the end of January.
The policy planning director post does not require Senate confirmation and Sullivan could be appointed as early as Jan. 27, according to Foreign Policy’s “The Cable” blog, citing sources within the State Department.
Sullivan’s close ties with Clinton is expected to help him keep policy planning closely incorporated into the secretary’s agenda, Josh Rogin says.
He is also expected to make the State Department’s policy planning more “operational” compared to when it was under Slaughter, whose main focus was the recently released Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review.
“”Policy planning will probably be a little more operational with a director who is not yet a household name but should be and will be soon,” Rogin quotes another State Department official.
Sullivan is relatively young for such a senior position, having graduated from the Yale Law School in 2004. He served as Clinton’s deputy policy director during her presidential campaign.
