Dean Garfield | Markle
Dean Garfield | Markle

Dean Garfield

President and CEO, Information Technology Industry Council
Member, Rework America Task Force

As President and CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), Dean C. Garfield leads the most effective and respected global advocacy organization for the world’s most innovative and dynamic companies. Dean leads a team of professionals who, combined, bring nearly three centuries of advocacy experience to bear on the world’s most complex policy challenges.

Since joining ITI in 2009, Dean has leveraged his skills as a high integrity, high performance leader with proven visionary and strategic skills and demonstrated operational and organizational acumen to double the organization’s membership, revenue, and impact.

Dean has worked to foster a policy environment that embraces cutting-edge research, game changing technologies, and pragmatic solutions as central to achieving sustained job creation and economic growth. Under Dean’s leadership, ITI has defined the tech agenda for global policymakers, expanded its membership and influence, and established a research foundation that serves as the preeminent thought leader on innovation. ITI has deepened its expertise on issues ranging from trade to taxes, from cloud computing to core standards, from AI to advanced manufacturing. During Garfield’s tenure, ITI’s advocacy experts have helped to achieve critical legislative victories in the U.S. and internationally, knocking down barriers to innovation, strengthening America’s economic competitiveness, and advancing sustainable technologies that will be at the heart of 21st century innovation.

Prior to joining ITI, Dean served as Executive Vice President and Chief Strategic Officer for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). While there, he developed the association’s global strategies, securing accomplishment of key operational objectives, forged industry alliances on behalf of the MPAA, and led the MPAA’s Research and Technology Departments. Dean also represented the MPAA before legislative bodies and at key conferences around the world, including the European Commission and Oxford University.

Dean also served as Vice President of Legal Affairs at the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). He helped to develop the organization’s comprehensive intellectual property policy and litigation strategies and managed several of the United States’ most important intellectual property cases, including the Grokster/Kazaa case, from its filing to it successful resolution at the Supreme Court.

Dean has been regularly recognized for his strong motivational and diplomatic skills, his commitment to consensus building, and for achieving results. In 2016, and 2015, Dean was named “Top Lobbyist” by The Hill for his leadership of ITI. Dean was honored with the first REACH Breaking Barriers Award recognizing him for his deep commitment to leading the world’s most dynamic industry in its efforts to support and inspire young people to develop the important science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills they must have to become tomorrow’s scientific problem solvers.

Dean was appointed by President Obama to the President’s Trade Advisory Council and was recently appointed to the Department of Transportation Advisory Committee on Automation. Dean serves on the boards of College for Every Student, the SEED School of Washington, D.C. and serves as the Board President of Aiden Montessori School. He has been featured in several national publications, on National Public Radio, CNBC, and Bloomberg TV News, representing the tech industry on the issues that matter most to the sector.

He received a joint degree from New York University School of Law and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Administration and International Affairs at Princeton University. He was a Ford-Rockefeller as well as a Root-Tilden-Snow scholar.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Dean is a naturalized U.S. citizen who resides in Washington, DC with his wife and two daughters.