Registration required: In-person and virtual attendance options can use the booking link below.

Overview: Join us for an incisive book talk with Andrew Badger, co-author of the #1 bestseller The Great Heist: China’s Epic Campaign to Steal America’s Secrets. Drawing on years of frontline experience, Badger will unpack how China has executed a coordinated, whole-of-society campaign to appropriate Western technology, data, and proprietary knowledge. From defense and aerospace to AI and agriculture, The Great Heist reveals how systematic intellectual-property theft has become a central instrument of strategic competition — with profound implications for economic resilience, innovation, and national security in the 21st century.

Lauded as a “riveting and astounding story” by H.R. McMaster, former U.S. National Security Advisor, and a “must-read” by Neil R. Wiley, former Chair of the National Intelligence Council, The Great Heist offers an unflinching account of how state-sponsored theft, talent recruitment, and industrial espionage have been used to siphon Western innovation at scale. This talk offers a rare opportunity to engage directly with one of the authors behind one of the most consequential books of recent years.

Speaker Bio: Andrew Badger is a former DIA case officer and graduate of CIA’s elite training program. He served on the front lines of human intelligence operations, including a 2014 deployment to Afghanistan in support of US military operations. In the private sector, Badger has advised global firms such as McKinsey & Company and Deutsche Bank on geopolitical risk. He holds a bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard and a master’s in diplomatic studies from the University of Oxford, where he is a research associate and lectures on state sponsored espionage.