Matthew Spence is a Managing Director at Guggenheim Partners, where he focuses on technology mergers and acquisition. He was previously a partners at the venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz. He is also the William J. Perry Fellow at Stanford University, where he was taught about cybersecurity and national security decision. He has been widely published and quoted in the national media, and testified before Congress on national security issues. From 2012 to 2015, Spence served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle East policy, where he was responsible for 14 countries in the Middle East and played a central role in military planning and defense sales and cooperation. He traveled to the Middle East over 40 times. He received the Secretary of Defense Award for Outstanding Public Service. From 2009 to 2012, Spence worked at the White House on the National Security Council as special assistant to the president and senior director for international economic affairs and as senior advisor to two national security advisors. He also has practiced criminal and international law in California. Spence is co-founder of the Truman National Security Project and a senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for International Affairs. He holds a B.A. and an M.A. in international policy from Stanford University, a J.D. from Yale Law School and a doctorate in international relations from Oxford University.