Wendy R. Anderson was Chief of Staff to Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. Before joining the Commerce team in August 2014, Wendy served as Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.  From 2011 to 2013, she served as Chief of Staff to Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter.  Prior to that, she served as a Special Assistant to Secretary Carter during his tenure as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics at the U.S. Department of Defense. She resigned her position in November 2014.

Prior to joining the Department of Defense in 2010, she served as professional staff on the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, managing the international security portfolio for the Subcommittee on International Security, and was lead staff on South Asia (particularly Afghanistan and Pakistan) and the Middle East.  During her Senate tenure, she also served as the intelligence liaison for Senator Barbara Mikulski on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

While Deputy Director of External Affairs at the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Ms. Anderson worked on post-conflict reconstruction in South Asia, the Middle East, and the Great Lakes region of Africa.  In this role, Anderson worked in the Balkans, Burundi, Cyprus, India, Israel and the West Bank, Northern Ireland, and Rwanda.  As a 1993-1994 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship recipient, she studied the prevention of deadly conflict - and the role of religion in it - in Russia, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and India.

Ms. Anderson received her BA from Hendrix College, a Master's degree in Philosophy and Theology from Harvard University, and a Master's degree in International Affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.  She is a Senior Advisor at the Truman National Security Project.  She is also a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served on the Council's 2009-2010 Independent Task Force on Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Ms. Anderson was twice awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Department's highest civilian award, presented by both Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.