As we celebrate Women’s History Month, Platinum Rule Advisors is spotlighting women who inspire us. Our founder, Leonora Zilkha Williamson, is chatting with some of her most admired women and learning about the women who inspired them.
Our fourth guest is Asha Rangappa, Senior Lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Legal and National Security Analyst at CNN and editor of Just Security magazine. Prior to her current position, Asha served as an Associate Dean at Yale Law School from 2005 to 2017 and a Special Agent in the New York Division of the FBI, focusing on counterintelligence investigations following 9/11. Her work involved assessing threats to national security, conducting classified investigations on suspected foreign agents and performing undercover work.
While in the FBI, Asha gained experience in electronic surveillance, interview and interrogation techniques, firearms and the use of deadly force. Her professional experience prepared her to teach National Security Law and related courses at Yale University, Wesleyan University, and University of New Haven.
Asha graduated cum laude from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study constitutional reform in Bogotá, Colombia. She earned her law degree from Yale Law School and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Juan R. Torruella on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Asha has published op-eds in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, among others, and has appeared on NPR, BBC, and several major television networks. She currently lives in Hamden, Connecticut with her two children.
In this conversation, Asha Rangappa shares her insights on the following questions:
- Tell us about your career trajectory.
- What are you up to today?
- Is there more to life than striving for what’s next?
- How has being grounded in who you are opened up new opportunities?
- Is there a woman who has inspired you?