Igor Khrestin serves as the Bradford M. Freeman Managing Director of Global Policy at the George W. Bush Institute. Prior to joining the Bush Institute, he served as Managing Director at FGS Global, a leading public affairs firm.
For nearly two decades, Khrestin worked in high-level roles in foreign affairs and advocacy. Khrestin was a Senior Adviser to former Senators Cory Gardner and Mark Kirk, and he also served as the Staff Director of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy. He served as the lead staffer for multiple major legislative initiatives enacted into law. These included the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018, which authorized $10 billion annually in new funding for U.S. efforts in the Indo‐Pacific region; the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016; and the Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative (TAIPEI) Act of 2019.
Prior to his Hill tenure, Khrestin worked at the BGR Group and the American Enterprise Institute, where he conducted research on Eurasian affairs and published numerous articles, op-eds, and papers. He received a bachelor’s in political science from Illinois Wesleyan University, a certificate in government from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a master’s from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
Khrestin came to the United States as a refugee from Ukraine in his early teens. He met his wife Theda on a congressional staff trip to Jordan in 2011, and they have two rambunctious young daughters. He is an avid soccer fan.
