Conor Savoy ’01

Alumni Voices

Conor Savoy ’01

Beaver Reflections:
I started at Beaver in 7th grade and had a wonderful experience. Beaver really gave me the opportunity to explore who I was and develop my interests. I made lifelong friends there and found teachers who encouraged me in my academic pursuits. Many of the teachers were some of the best educators that I’ve had in my life, including through college and graduate school. Mr. Gow not only encouraged my interest in history but also helped me to develop writing skills and research skills so that I could explore history in a way that is more than just reading a book, it is actually doing the research itself. He and I did an independent study together on a less well-known colony that was established around the time as Plymouth, and I wrote a 30-page paper on my research. It was an incredible experience that influenced my passion for history.

What is #happeningnow in your life:
I went to George Washington for college and majored in history. After that, I worked for a couple of years in investment research but also worked for a defense consultant in DC. Then I went to Boston University to get my Master’s in international relations. Since then I’ve been in Washington. I’ve worked for two think tanks that focus on US foreign policy and National Security – the Council on Foreign Relations and Center for Strategic and International Studies. Now I run an organization called the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN). We try to make foreign assistance more effective. We advocate on the Hill, in Congress and with the Administration about how the US spends its foreign aid dollars. I still live in Washington with my wife and my two daughters, and I’m fairly active in foreign policy circles.

“Stay in touch with the people you’re friends with because they’re people that may be friends for life and there’s no calculating how valuable that is for you over the course of your lifetime.”

– Conor Savoy ’01

Advice to Beaver students:
Take advantage of your time at Beaver. It’s a wonderful time in your life and although it doesn’t always look like that when you’re 15 or 16 years old, cherish the time that you have.. . I would just urge current Beaver students to do something they wouldn’t have thought they wanted to do, like stage managing a play. I would never have thought that I would try stage managing, and it was a wonderful experience!

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