Gladden Pappin, American Affairs Cofounder and Think Tank President, Joins Ballard Partners to Direct New European Practice
September 24, 2026
Contact: Justin Sayfie
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Pappin, Who Has Advised International Government Officials and Vice President JD Vance, Named Managing Partner for Central and Eastern Europe as Firm Opens Offices in Budapest and Warsaw
WASHINGTON, D.C., BUDAPEST, Hungary and WARSAW, Poland – Ballard Partners, a leading international government relations and public affairs firm, today announced that Gladden Pappin is joining the firm as a Partner in the Washington office. Pappin has advised top government officials in Europe and Vice President JD Vance and his office on the U.S.-Europe relationship. He will also serve as Managing Partner for Central and Eastern Europe, opening new offices in Budapest, Hungary, and Warsaw, Poland, and leading the firm’s new Central and Eastern European (CEE) Practice. From the firm’s Washington office, Pappin will connect decision-makers with governments and businesses across more than a dozen countries of the wider region.
Pappin is the cofounder of American Affairs, the widely consulted policy journal whose arguments for strategic sector, supply chain, and reindustrialization priorities are now major operating assumptions in business as well as government. He most recently led Hungary’s foreign policy institute, where he supported the U.S.-Hungary relationship under President Donald Trump.
“Gladden’s agenda-setting work has made him a key interlocutor at the highest levels of Washington as well as in European policymaking,” said Brian Ballard, President and Founder of Ballard Partners. “Opening offices in Budapest and Warsaw at the same time gives our clients a presence in two of the region’s most important capitals from day one. For more than a decade, Gladden has built the case for American industrial prowess, supply chain security, and foreign policy strength, priorities the United States is now acting on. He will help our clients see where governments on both sides of the Atlantic are headed, not just where they are today.”
Pappin most recently served as President of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, leading the sixty-person institute through three years of major international growth. In that role he was a key counterpart on the U.S.-Hungary relationship, participating in the November 2025 White House meetings with President Trump, which expanded bilateral cooperation on energy, defense, and security issues. He took part in related negotiations with Vice President Vance and, later, in the Vice President’s April 2026 visit to Budapest. He has been active in high-level discussions in more than thirty countries throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and is a regular participant in forums including the Munich Security Conference and the Raisina Dialogue.
“Ballard Partners has built one of the most effective government relations platforms in the world, and I am honored to join the firm and lead the CEE Practice out of Budapest and Warsaw,” said Pappin. “The countries of this region touch the major corridors defining America’s security, its energy future, and its supply chains, and the policy shifts driving that change are here to stay. Businesses and governments want to anticipate where policy is headed, and we are ready to help them position themselves accordingly.”
The Budapest and Warsaw offices will jointly anchor the larger CEE Practice, which will advise companies, investors, and governments across the region and in adjoining markets. Poland’s growing role as a defense and security partner of the United States, together with the region’s expanding energy, defense industrial, and technology sectors, is creating new opportunities for American companies abroad and for Central and Eastern European interests in Washington. The two offices are the firm’s first in Central and Eastern Europe and extend an international footprint that includes Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Riyadh, and Caracas.
Pappin has also worked in industrial technology, cofounding Realm Alliance, an AI-driven venture serving the mining sector, in 2021. He previously served as a tenured Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Dallas and held fellowships at the University of Notre Dame. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in government, all from Harvard University.
