Jesse Baker is Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Asia and the Middle East in the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes (TFFC). He is responsible for directing strategies and engaging with partners to disrupt the financing of threats to national security and to protect the international financial system from abuse by illicit actors. Mr. Baker’s portfolio includes China, North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, and terrorism. Prior to this position, Mr. Baker served as Director for Asia in TFFC, where he was responsible for a team of policy advisors covering national security priorities and illicit finance issues across the region. He joined TFFC as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing, and covered a broad range of national security and anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) issues during his tenure. From 2019-2022, Mr. Baker served as the U.S. Head of Delegation to the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG), the FATF-style regional body for the Asia Pacific region.
Prior to joining Treasury in 2018, Mr. Baker spent three years in the private sector as the program manager for a major global consulting engagement with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and the Combatant Commands. Prior to that, he served for almost eight years as a senior intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, primarily focused on South Asia regional issues, counterterrorism, and counternarcotics. Mr. Baker was the Presidential Daily Briefer to then-Vice President Joseph Biden and then-National Security Advisor to the Vice President Jake Sullivan from 2013-2014. In 2008, 2010, and 2012 he deployed as a civilian to Afghanistan in a variety of roles supporting U.S. and coalition special forces, conventional forces, and law enforcement.
Mr. Baker holds a Master of Arts (honors) from the Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago, and a Bachelor of Arts from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University.