Jonathan Finer

Jonathan Finer (born 1976) is an American journalist and civil servant who served as deputy national security advisor under national security advisor Jake Sullivan in the Biden administration. He previously served as the chief of staff and director of policy planning for former Secretary of State John Kerry at the U.S. Department of State.

Early life and education Finer was born in Norwich, Vermont, the eldest of four children. His parents were Susan (née Burack) and Chad Finer. His mother was the principal of the Frances C. Richmond School and his father a doctor.

Finer graduated from Hanover High School in Hanover, New Hampshire in 1994. He attended Harvard University, where he developed an interest in international relations after spending time working for the Labour Party in the United Kingdom. He earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, where he co-founded the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project, and an M.Phil. in international relations from Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Finer also spent a year in Hong Kong as a Henry Luce Foundation Scholar, working as a reporter and editor at the Far Eastern Economic Review.

Career Finer was a foreign and national correspondent at the Washington Post, where he reported from more than twenty countries and spent eighteen months covering the war in Iraq, embedding with the U.S. Marines during the 2003 invasion and based in Baghdad in 2005–2006. He also covered conflicts in Gaza (2009), Russia/Georgia (2008) and Israel/Lebanon (2006); the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign; and the 2004 Major League Baseball playoffs. At the White House, he also served as special advisor for the Middle East and North Africa and foreign policy speechwriter for Vice President Joseph R. Biden and later as senior advisor to deputy national security advisor Antony Blinken.

From March 7, 2016 to January 20, 2017, Finer served as Director of Policy Planning. Prior to his appointment as chief of staff and Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, Finer previously served as deputy chief of staff for policy. and served as a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a former member of the board of directors for the Truman National Security Project.

In November 2025, Jake Sullivan and Finer launched The Long Game, a weekly podcast in which they analyze current news and present U.S. policy choices from their perspectives as former White House National Security Advisor and Deputy National Security Advisor, respectively.