MS. Maia Comeau

Maia Comeau is a public affairs leader with over fifteen years of global government relations, fundraising, and management experience in Washington, DC. She is currently a Senior Fellow at The Lugar Center, a private consultant, and a 2016 Presidential Leadership Scholar.

In January 2016, Ms. Comeau founded the consulting firm Disruptive Strategies which provides government and public affairs counsel to foundations, corporations and foreign countries. Prior to creating the firm, Ms. Comeau founded and served for twelve years as the Director of Congressional Affairs for the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Under her leadership, the congressional affairs department grew to include seven professional staff, with an operating budget of over 1 million. The department handled a variety of programs designed to educate Congress on transatlantic policy. She regularly visited Europe on issue focused study tours and was a key member of GMF’s senior external relations team working on fundraising, communications, and major conferences. In addition to her role as Director of Congressional Affairs, she founded, in 2013, the Richard G. Lugar Institute for Diplomacy and Congress which worked to build bridges between foreign diplomats and the US Congress. While at GMF, Ms. Comeau spearheaded an organization wide effort to develop diversity and inclusion best practice policies, including the creation of the first affinity group on women and leadership which offered professional development and mentoring opportunities for GMF employees. 

Ms. Comeau is a recent graduate of the 2016 class of Presidential Leadership Scholars, which is led by President’s Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. She has been awarded fellowships with the Bucerius Young Leader Summer School on Global Governance; American Council on Germany; the Draeger Foundation; and, the American Israel Education Foundation. 

Prior to joining GMF, Ms. Comeau worked for the government consulting firm of Bergner, Bockorny, Castagnetti & Hawkins where she represented a diverse group of corporations, trade associations and foreign nations before Congress and the Executive branch. Ms. Comeau is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and was a professional ballet dancer with Complexions Dance Company in New York.  She is the proud new owner of a historic farm in central Pennsylvania where she is collecting a barnful of animals and tools.