Robert Blair

Robert B. Blair is a practitioner senior fellow at the Miller Center. He is also the chief global policy officer at Applied Materials, where he leads global government affairs and policy strategy for the world’s largest semiconductor equipment company, spanning trade policy, export controls, and international government engagement across key markets.

Blair's career has taken him through the White House, Congress, the executive branch, and the private sector, offering a practitioner’s perspective on how presidents and their teams navigate the intersection of technology, national security, and economic policy.

Blair served in senior positions across the executive branch. At the White House from 2019-2021, he was assistant to the president and senior advisor to the chief of staff, where he supported presidential decision-making on foreign policy and national security and managed interagency processes across the National Security Council, State Department, Department of Defense, and the intelligence community — work that gave him a firsthand view of how competing institutional perspectives are reconciled at the highest levels of government. He concurrently served as U.S. special representative for international telecommunications policy, leading U.S. global strategy on 5G security to address supply chain vulnerabilities.

At the Department of Commerce, Blair served as director of policy and strategic planning, leading the development of semiconductor-specific export control measures, entity list designations, and CFIUS implementation procedures during a period of intensified technology competition with China. At the Office of Management and Budget, he oversaw $1.3 trillion in national security budgets as associate director for national security programs, managing a team of 100 career professionals across the Departments of Defense, State, and Veterans Affairs, and the intelligence community.

Before entering the executive branch, Blair spent 14 years on the staff of the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations, rising to staff director of the Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations, where he directed funding and oversight of nearly $600 billion in annual defense and intelligence spending. He also served as staff director for energy and water development appropriations, overseeing more than $30 billion in annual funding for energy, nuclear weapons, and water infrastructure programs. His years on the Hill shaped his understanding of the tensions between executive authority and congressional oversight in national security.

From 2021 to 2025, Blair held senior leadership roles at Microsoft Corporation, most recently leading government affairs across AI, quantum computing, classified cloud, and national security programs. In 2025, he was a principal at WestExec Advisors.

He began his career as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Central African Republic and later served at the U.S. Department of State, where he contributed to President George W. Bush’s PEPFAR AIDS Initiative.

Blair holds a Master of Arts in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, a Master of Arts from Tufts, and a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University.