Jessica Ashooh

Dr. Jessica Ashooh is a policy executive who leads public policy at Reddit, joining the company as Director of Policy and later rising to Vice President of Policy. In that role she addresses a broad range of online and technology-policy issues, from misinformation and so-called fake news to online extremist recruiting and content moderation, representing Reddit's interests on questions of platform governance and regulation. Her background is unusual for a Silicon Valley policy leader, drawing heavily on foreign-policy and national-security experience rather than a purely technology or legal career.

Ashooh earned her undergraduate degree from Brown University, graduating in 2006, and went on to complete a doctorate in international relations at the University of Oxford (St. Antony's College), which she attended as a Marshall Scholar. Her doctoral research focused on ideological and bureaucratic infighting in U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East. She also studied at the American University of Beirut and the Bourguiba Language Institute in Tunis, reflecting a regional specialization in the Middle East.

Before entering the technology sector, Ashooh worked from 2011 to 2015 as a senior analyst in the United Arab Emirates Foreign Ministry's Policy Planning Department in Abu Dhabi. From 2015 to 2017 she served as Deputy Director of the bipartisan Middle East Strategy Task Force at the Atlantic Council, a project co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, where she focused on long-term strategy to address state failure and violent extremism in the region.

At Reddit, Ashooh has been a key voice as the platform navigated high-profile debates over content moderation, free expression, the banning of controversial communities, and the company's relationship with policymakers in the run-up to and following its 2024 public listing. Her move from international-relations policy work to a leading role at a major social platform has been highlighted in technology-industry profiles as an example of how national-security and foreign-policy expertise increasingly informs how large internet platforms manage trust, safety, and governance.