Bassma Kodmani is with Institute Montaigne as Senior Fellow, and a member of the Syrian Constitutional Committee. Until 2019, she served as the Executive Director of the Arab Reform Initiative. She served as senior adviser at the French National Research Council, Senior Research Fellow at CERI-Sciences Po, adviser to the Académie Diplomatique Internationale and Senior Visiting Fellow at the Collège de France.

From 1998 to 2005, she served as head of the Governance and International Cooperation program at the Ford Foundation office for the Middle East. From 1981 to 1998, she established and directed the Middle East Program at the Institut Français des Relations Internationales (IFRI) in Paris.

In 2011-2012, she took a leave to serve as head of Foreign Relations and spokesperson for the Syrian National Council. She is currently a member of the negotiating team for the Syria UN-led peace talks in Geneva. She is the co-founder and treasurer of GLOBAL SYRIA, an initiative of the Syrian diaspora to leverage Syrians’ assets for the reconstruction of their home country.

She holds a PhD in Political Science from Sciences-Po in Paris. She has authored and edited books, reports and articles on conflicts, political and security reforms and religious authorities in the Middle East. Kodmani is a member of the Advisory Boards of several international and Arab institutions. She holds the distinction of Chevalière de la Légion d’Honneur of France.