Elena McGovern

Elena McGovern

Managing Director

Elena leads Capstone’s National Security Practice, where she plays a leading role in the firm’s policy advisory, strategy, and due diligence work for private equity and corporate clients. Her work cuts across major themes in the US and global business environment, including advising on geopolitics, defense and national security, national disasters and emergency response, the business implications of novel US federal government programs and packages, and trends within state and local governments. Since joining Capstone in 2019, Elena has provided strategy support to a range of US and global businesses on opportunities emerging from the shifting policy and regulatory landscape, and advised on a large number of private equity transactions when policy and regulatory drivers are fundamental to the investment thesis.

Prior to joining Capstone, Elena was a Senior Analyst with Kearney’s Global Business Policy Council, a strategic service of Kearney that is ranked second among the world’s for-profit think tanks. She focused her work on advising clients and writing public-facing analysis on the business implications of key trends, including globalization-localization pressures driving the reconfiguration of supply chains and the business impacts of emerging technologies and data privacy trends around the world. Elena also served as the Council’s energy analyst, and focused on US and global energy policies and the energy transition. Prior to her work at Kearney, Elena served as an Energy Analyst at the political risk firms The Eurasia Group and Fitch Solutions (formerly BMI Research), as well as in the United Arab Emirates. She started her career at the Stimson Center focused on Middle East regional security issues.

Elena has a dual master’s degree in international economics and strategic studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Lehigh University. She resides in Washington, DC.