Jack Connolly is a Visiting Fellow of Practice at the Blavatnik School of Government, working with the Heywood Fellow Jonathan Black. Prior to his appointment Jack was the Deputy Director in the United Kingdom’s National Security Secretariat responsible for the UK’s sanctions response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and coordination thereof among the G7. He also led on a wider set of international economic policy issues including investment screening (and passage of the NSI Act), supply chain resilience, natural resource security and export controls. For the UK’s Presidency of the G7 in 2021 he ran the ‘G7 Panel on Economic Resilience’ with Lord Sedwill.

Over the last ten years Jack has held a wide variety of roles in The Cabinet Office and Downing Street, including as Press Officer to Prime Minister Cameron, a founding member of the UK's Joint Anti-Corruption Unit, Chief of Staff for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2018, Deputy Director for multilateral policy including the Prime Minister’s G7, G20, and UN engagement, alongside time on Middle East security issues. Before government, Jack had a brief flirtation with a career in radio broadcasting at the BBC. Jack holds a degree in Anthropology from Durham University and a Master of Laws (LL.M QLD) from Birkbeck, University of London.

Jack is interested in the public policy challenges that arise when governments’ economic and security objectives are in tension, whether these issues are as pronounced, defining and new as they are sometimes said to be, and how ‘economic statecraft’ is developing as a tool of geopolitical competition and conflict.