Paul Misener is the Founder and Principal of Misener Innovation LLC, a consultancy dedicated to helping organizations innovate, advocate, and communicate. More at misenerinnovation.com.
Paul is an engineer/scientist (Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Princeton University, 1985; senior research in the Department of Physics). He is also an attorney (Juris Doctor, George Mason University, 1993; GMU Distinguished Achievement Award, 2001). In 2023, Paul was awarded the degree of Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by George Mason University.
A global vice president at Amazon.com for 23 years, most recently Vice President for Global Innovation Policy and Communications, Paul was a leader in Amazon’s culture of innovation, and he represented Amazon to external organizations and internal colleagues worldwide. The founder of Amazon’s global public policy organization, Paul built and led this organization and served as the company’s Vice President for Global Public Policy from February 2000 to May 2016. Paul has testified before the United States Congress over 30 times and many dozens of times before other policymaking bodies around the world. He has delivered hundreds of speeches and media interviews.
In 2013, Paul chaired the technical subcommittee of the US Federal Aviation Administration’s advisory committee that recommended allowing commercial airline passengers to use portable electronics during taxi, takeoff, and landing. Prior to the recommendation from Paul’s subcommittee, airline passengers around the world were barred from using electronic devices during taxi, takeoff, and landing; today electronic devices may be used gate to gate. Paul is an inventor named in three patents.
Formerly a partner in the law firm of Wiley, Rein & Fielding, Paul previously served as the Senior Legal Advisor to a commissioner of the US Federal Communications Commission, and as Intel’s Manager of Telecommunications and Computer Technology Policy. In the mid-1990s, he co-founded and led the computer industry’s Internet Access Coalition, which included Intel, Microsoft, and IBM, and which successfully blocked the imposition of telecom access charges on Internet access. In the early 1990s, he was the assistant to the chairman of the Emmy Award-winning FCC Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service, which established the system that underlies modern TV and computer displays.
Paul serves on the Advisory Board of the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives (where he co-chairs the Board’s Advancement Committee); the Board of Trustees of the Inova Health System; George Mason University’s President’s Innovation Advisory Council; the Advisory Board of the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation; the President’s Future of Work Business Advisory Committee at the Northern Virginia Community College; and the Board of the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce and on the Chamber’s Strategic Leadership Board of Advisors. For three years ending in mid-2024, Paul chairs the Board of the foundation for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST), a nationally top-ranked STEM-focused public school in Northern Virginia.
Paul is an FCC-licensed amateur radio operator at the highest level (Amateur Extra Class, Call Sign KO4EUR). He also is a keel sailboat skipper certified by both the United States Sailing Association (US Sailing) and the American Sailing Association (ASA). He and his family live in the United States near Washington, DC.
