Karina Lipsman is a visiting fellow at Independent Women’s Forum. Her expertise in international diplomacy, geo-political strategy, conflict resolution, cyber, space, defense operations, and implementation of U.S. global defense systems spans almost two decades. Most recently, Karina served as the 2022 United States Congressional nominee for Virginia’s 8th district. In this capacity, she was the only Ukrainian-born refugee immigrant nominated to run for Congress in the entire country, broke multiple milestones by winning a historic percentage in a five-way highly contested primary and outperforming 30 years of fundraising records.

Prior to running for Congress, Karina was responsible for Peraton’s corporate strategy. In this capacity, she developed business strategy and policy to allocate financial and human capital resources for investment, business execution, and new business opportunities. Before that, Karina served as a senior strategist for Northrop Grumman Corporation where she was instrumental in leading international and domestic portfolios, championed innovations to drive organizational adaptation in the digital economy, built cross-functional teams focused on next general Space initiatives, and incepted enterprise-wide initiatives resulting in cost avoidance, operational efficiency, and business growth. Karina’s career also encompasses the financial management of high-net-worth portfolios to maximize financial stability and achieve above-average returns.

Karina holds a Master’s in engineering from Johns Hopkins University and Bachelor’s in Economics from Towson University. She is a native Russian speaker and has held TS/SCI clearances.

As a sought-after expert commentator on international diplomatic relations between the United States and Ukraine, Karina has been featured on Fox News Digital, Daily Caller, Voice of America, WJLA, ABC7, OAN, Washington Times, and others.