David Lee Carden is an American lawyer, diplomat, mediator and author who is a former United States Representative to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (“ASEAN”) with the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary.

While at Jones Day, Carden was responsible for representing clients in some of the largest securities fraud cases ever litigated, including those concerning Enron, Parmalat and AIG.

Carden defended cases concerning derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, currencies, commodities, options, various direct investments and more traditional financial products.

Ambassador, Carden oversaw the broadening engagement of the United States in Southeast Asia, which included the Obama Administration's 2011 "pivot" or "rebalance" to the region.

His responsibilities included supporting ASEAN as it moves toward economic integration in 2015 and advocating for the systemic changes necessary to promote peaceful and prosperous growth in the region.

Under his leadership, the U.S. Mission addressed the issues inherent in realizing ASEAN's aspirations, including economic development, trade liberalization, intellectual property protection, developing the rule of law and more effective governance, pandemic prevention and preparedness, providing more effective responses to natural disasters, advancing health care and educational opportunities, addressing human and wildlife trafficking, terrestrial and maritime environmental protection, managing the region's fisheries and natural resources, responding to deforestation and climate change, food and water security, advancing programs to increase the resilience of ASEAN's people and institutions, promoting historical and cultural preservation, and focusing on sustainable cities.

He worked to build alliances in the region, including facilitating efforts by the embassies of countries in the European Union and Latin America in their engagement with ASEAN.

The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 2022; Beyond Ceasefires: Using Private Mediators to Resolve Stalemated Civil Conflicts, Strategic Review, 2022; Putin's Wars on Rationality and Globalization, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 2022; Domestic Policy Is Foreign Policy: Wage Stagnation and Income Inequality Threaten America's Leadership Abroad, The SAIS Review of International Affairs, 2022; We All Are Ukrainians, The SAIS Review of International Affairs, 2022; To Save Democracy, America Needs a Mandatory Public Service Program, Foreign Policy, 2021; Concepts of Ownership Shouldn’t Apply to the Parthenon Marbles, ekathimerini, 2021; Finding Common Ground: The Effect of Geography on Domestic and Foreign Policy, The SAIS Review of International Affairs, 2021; To Pay for the Pandemic, Dry Out the Tax Havens, Foreign Policy, 2020; My Solution to the Parthenon Marbles Row: a Museum for the 21st Century, The Guardian, 2020; From Climate Change to the Coronavirus, Complex Adaptive Systems Thinking is Key to Handling Crises, South China Morning Post, 2020; Why We Need a New Approach to North Korea, Politico, 2018; Why Asian Trade is a National-Security Issue (with Ambassador David I. Adelman), Politico, 2015; and Sustaining ASEAN’s Science and Technology Future, (with Dr. Montira Pongsiri), The Strategic Review, 2015 Ambassador Carden is the Chairman of the Advisory Board for The Center for Rural Engagement at Indiana University.

In 1997, Riley arranged for Obama to speak in Chicago at a Valentine’s Day gathering of the “Futures Committee”, a civic leadership group created by the Local Initiatives Support Corp.