Trusted Terrain Strategies

Build on trusted ground.

Trusted Terrain Strategies advises companies, institutions, and the public sector on economic security, illicit finance, transparency, and geopolitical risk, and helps them build strategies that profit from integrity.

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What we cover

We survey the terrain, analyze the risks, design the strategy, write the reports, and craft the policies to solve the tough problems and get you onto trusted ground. Our work gives power to integrity and builds trust into business.

Josh Birenbaum speaking on a panel in front of a slide with gears labeled illicit finance rules, economic resilience and supply chain, investment flows, and positive economic power.

  • Economic security and geopolitical risk

    How sanctions, export controls, tariffs, investment screening, and great power competition change exposure for companies and organizations, including supply chain and critical minerals vulnerabilities.

  • Emerging technology and trusted digital infrastructure

    Developing the policies and frameworks for designing trust, accountability, and privacy into innovation and technology; designing the compliance, law enforcement, trade, and sanctions evasion solutions unlocked by digital identity, AI, and blockchain.

  • Illicit and adversarial finance

    How criminals, kleptocrats, and authoritarian governments make, move, and launder money, and what that means for financial institutions, multinational businesses, law enforcement, and policymakers.

  • Anti-corruption, compliance, and due diligence

    Corruption risk assessments, policies and procedures, and employee training, covering bribery, AML/CFT, sanctions, forced labor, and third-party and intermediary risk.

  • Business and organizational strategy

    Developing ambitious visions, testing unconventional approaches, reframing the problem, and aligning staff to carry the strategy out.

  • Policy and advocacy

    Legislative and regulatory strategy, policy drafting, testimony, public comments, and coalitions that cross party lines, defy ideological preconceptions, and unite competitors in support of good ideas.

  • Research and writing

    Reports, white papers, op-eds, speeches, strategic plans, and internal policies, written to meet the client’s needs and exceed the client’s expectations.

How do we use the power of our markets to defend our markets, not with a more restrictive global economy, but a more trusted one?

Design the system, not just the response

Fines, sanctions, and export controls react to abuse after the fact. We look at the connective infrastructure that makes abuse easy and ask what could be redesigned so that legitimate commerce has the advantage.

Treat transparency as an advantage

Transparency is not a shield; it is a sword. Honest firms thrive in information-rich markets, while illicit actors must have secrecy to operate. Transparency, verification, and shared standards provide asymmetric advantages for the trusted and impose costs on the rogues.

Build alignment with partners

Market power increases with economic alignment among trusted partners. Resilience comes from enlarging the group of companies and nations playing by the same rules with common standards, not simply from supply chain diversification.

Keep privacy and accountability together

New tools for identity and verification can limit surveillance by governments, companies, and hackers while widening access and oversight. We help clients hold both commitments at once.

Josh Birenbaum, Principal

Josh has run Joshua Birenbaum Consulting since 2007, advising academic, corporate, government, health care, non-profit, and research organizations on strategy, policy advocacy, and organizational alignment. Trusted Terrain Strategies continues that work, with a sharper focus on corruption, illicit finance, and economic security.

He is an attorney and a policy practitioner who builds bipartisan coalitions and turns fast-moving developments into guidance that organizations can act on.

Portrait of Josh Birenbaum.
Consulting
Principal, Joshua Birenbaum Consulting, 2007 to present. Strategy for ambitious visions and unconventional approaches; support for strategy implementation, policy advocacy, and staff alignment; analysis, reports, speeches, legislative strategies, and internal policies.
Policy leadership
Deputy Director, Center on Economic and Financial Power, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, 2023 to present. Set the Center’s strategy and research priorities; briefed members and staff of both parties in both chambers; proposed bill language and drafted testimony; built coalitions that ranged from law enforcement and national security to human rights and environmental groups, unified in support of good ideas.
Corporate compliance
Research and Policy Analyst, TRACE International, 2021 to 2023. Industry-wide and company-specific anti-corruption risk assessments, policies, procedures, thought leadership, and trainings for multinational companies in a wide range of industries.
Litigation
Attorney, Howrey LLP, 2000 to 2007. Complex litigation in federal and state court for Fortune 500 companies, leading teams through discovery, briefing, hearings, negotiations, and trial.
Education
J.D., University of Virginia School of Law; B.A., Bard College. Member of the DC bar.

Selected writing

Recent analysis and commentary on economic security, illicit finance, corruption, emerging technology, trade, and great power competition.

See all writing and public comments

Appearances on national television, local and international radio, and numerous podcasts. Published in Newsweek, the New York Post, National Review, The Hill, The National Interest, the Washington Examiner, Euronews, The Daily Wire, and The Telegraph.

Tell us what you’re trying to solve.

A short description of the question, the deadline, and who needs to be persuaded is enough to start.