Saul Singer

Saul Singer is the author of the 2009 New York Times best-selling book Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle. He co-authored the book with Dan Senor and it was received with glowing reviews and has been translated into 13 languages.

Saul was born in Washington, D.C. in 1950. He has a Masters degree from Harvard in Public Administration and has worked in politics, public policy and public service for most of his career. After graduating from Harvard in 1978, Saul clerked for Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson before becoming Chief Speechwriter for U.S. Senator Robert Dole in 1980. After a six-year stint in the Senate, Saul was hired by the Republican National Committee to serve on Ronald Reagan’s successful 1984 presidential campaign.

Saul spent much of the late '80s and '90s in national security research and team building. From 1991-1995, he served as the Director of International Security Programs in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Saul's experience and expertise led him to be named as one of the founding members of the Office of Homeland Security in October 2002.

In 2007, Saul accepted a position as a Visiting Professor of Government at Haifa University in Israel. It was in Israel that he met his co-author Dan Senor, who was then an advisor to the Prime Minister on economic issues. While working together on policy issues, Senor presented Saul with an idea for a book. Saul later reflected: “It was a bet or a challenge. Could I see something in the Israeli economy and innovation culture that as an American, I hadn’t been exposed to?”

The result of Saul and Dan’s research and collaboration was the 2009 New York Times bestseller Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle. The book has been praised by readers, thinkers and business executives and has been translated into 13 languages. It has been credited as a key factor in the world’s renewed interest in Israel and the opportunities it can offer to foreign investors.

In a Wall Street Journal article, Saul eloquently summed up his experience working on the book: “Coming from the United States, I was bracing for a culture clash. I anticipated unbridgeable gaps in language or religion, and a work environment as inhospitable to an American as Tel Aviv’s summer heat. As an American who had never before ventured into this strange land of startups and chutzpah, I was prepared for the possibility—even the likelihood—of failure.”

In addition to Start-Up Nation, Saul has written numerous articles, reviews and op-eds for Politico, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and other publications. He has served on the Board of Directors of the global consulting firm McKinsey & Company, and is currently a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Today, Saul is a sought-after speaker and consultant, traveling the world to provide insight on issues such as entrepreneurship, innovation, national security and economic policy. His work has taken him to the corners of the globe, including the United States, Europe, Australia and China.

In the years since its publication, Start-Up Nation has become an essential read for those interested in understanding Israel’s remarkable rise to the forefront of the tech industry and what lessons the success of the country holds for the world. Saul Singer's detailed and well-researched research, combined with his unique and compelling insights, makes him one of the most important voices in the intellectual conversation about contemporary issues.