Nat Kern is President of Foreign Reports. He has been with the firm since 1972, becoming Vice President in 1975, and President in 1990.
Mr. Kern received his BA in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University in 1972. From 1970-1971, he attended the University of Riyadh, making him the first non-Arab student to study in Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Kern is an expert on Middle East oil affairs. He has decades of experience and has traveled widely throughout the region.
Mr. Kern was a frequent visitor to Iraq during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. From 1991 onwards, after the U.S. shunned any official contact with Baghdad, he was tasked by the U.S. government with maintaining ties with key Iraqi officials.
Mr. Kern also has special ties to Saudi Arabia. He has organized a several senior-level U.S. delegations to the Kingdom over the years. Beginning in 1997, he worked closely with the Saudi government, helping lay the groundwork for the Saudi Gas Initiative, which sought foreign investment from U.S. companies.
Matthew Reed joined Foreign Reports in 2011 and became Vice President in 2014. His areas of expertise include Saudi Arabia, OPEC and its evolving relationship with Russia, Iran sanctions, and Libya’s post-uprising oil sector, among others. His extensive and original research on ISIS oil operations in Iraq and Syria made him the go-to expert on that topic beginning in 2015.
Mr. Reed joined the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines as a Non-Resident Fellow in 2018. In 2015, he was an Energy Security Fellow with Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE).