Chris Stone is Professor of Practice of Public Integrity. Chris has blended theory and practice throughout a four-decade career dedicated to justice reform, good governance and innovation in the public sector, working with officials, advocates, and activists in dozens of countries worldwide.

Prior to joining the Blavatnik School faculty in 2019, Chris served as president of the Open Society Foundations (2012–2017), as Guggenheim Professor of the Practice of Criminal Justice at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (2004–2012), as faculty director of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University (2007–2012), and as president and director of the Vera Institute of Justice (1994–2004). He is a graduate of Harvard College, the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge, and the Yale Law School.

At the Blavatnik School of Government, Chris’s work focuses on the rule of law and building cultures of integrity in public institutions. You can view a 30-minute version of his masterclass on Public Corruption Turnarounds on our Youtube channel. Chris led the development of the School’s executive programmes from 2019 through 2025.  He continues to co-chair our Executive Public Leaders Programme and teaches widely on other programmes.  For the UK government, he co-designed both the Directors Leadership Programme (for the Cabinet Office) and the Global Network Programme (for the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office).

From 2019 to 2025, Chris co-led the Symposium for Strength and Solidarity for Human Rights In conjunction with Oxford University's Bonavero Institute of Human Rights.

Throughout his career, Chris’s principal focus has been criminal justice reform in countries from the United States and the United Kingdom to Chile, China, India, Nigeria, South Africa, Turkey and more.  Chris was privileged to work alongside the creators of the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service, South Africa’s National Prosecution Authority, Chile’s Ministerio Publico, and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.  He continues an active collaboration with innovators and reformers in South Africa.

Early in his career, Chris was a criminal trial attorney, starting as a public defender in Washington, DC, and later co-founding the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem. In 2005, he received an honorary OBE for his contributions to criminal justice reform in the United Kingdom.

Chris’s use of AI in professional work: 
The Blavatnik School of Government requires faculty to disclose when we use AI to generate words or thoughts we share with others. I use ChatGPT routinely as a research assistant across all my professional projects, exploring ideas, open-source information, and examples of theory and practice in dialogue format. I verify all citations independently. I preserve archive copies of these dialogues with ChatGPT. I also use AI to create fictional materials and graphical illustrations for classroom simulations. I do not use AI to generate drafts of my written work or presentations, and I do not use AI to draft, review, revise, edit, or format my writing apart from the use of spelling and grammar checkers built into standard applications.