Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement, Bureau of Industry and Security, U.S. Department of Commerce

Matthew Axelrod serves as the Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, after being unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Matt leads a team of special agents and analysts dedicated to stopping exports of sensitive goods and technologies to foreign parties who would use them for malign purposes, including terrorism, military modernization, and human rights abuses. Matt has deep criminal and national security enforcement experience from spending nearly two decades at the Justice Department culminating as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, one of the Department's highest-ranking officials.

Matt previously served at the White House Counsel office and as a partner in an international law firm, where he did internal investigations and white-collar defense work.

Matt received his B.A. cum laude from Amherst College and his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was Notes Editor for the Yale Law Journal. Following law school, Matt clerked for the Honorable Ralph K. Winter, Jr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and for the Honorable Janet C. Hall on the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut.