Robert Pepper | Senior Fellow
Global Digital Inclusion Partnership (GDIP)

Robert Pepper is a Senior Fellow at the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership (GDIP) where he advises governments, international organizations, private sector players and NGOs on connectivity and digital infrastructure technology, trends and policy. Before joining GDIP, Pepper helped lead Meta’s connectivity and technology policy activities focusing on new technology development, deployment and adoption.  In this role, he led the Policy team working with Meta’s Network Infrastructure team designing and deploying global subsea and terrestrial and edge networks including for data centers, as well as mobile and wireless technologies. Prior to Meta, Pepper was Cisco’s Vice President for Global Technology Policy for more than a decade working with governments across the world helping them develop their digital strategies and address areas such as ICT and development, broadband plans, IP enabled services, wireless and spectrum policy, the Internet of Things, security, privacy as well as Internet Governance. Pepper currently is an advisor on submarine cable network best practices, security and resilience to the Commercial Law Development Program at the U.S. Department of Commerce and is a member of the US FCC’s CSRIC Working Group on Ensuring Submarine Cable Security and Resiliency.  He was an advisor to the recent ITU/ICPC International Advisory Body on Submarine Cable Resilience. Pepper served more than two decades in government including as Chief of the Office of Plans and Policy and Chief of Policy Development at the FCC, from 1989-2005, where he helped implement telecommunications legislation and develop policies promoting the development of the Internet, leading teams designing and implementing the first U.S. spectrum auctions, telecommunications competition, and planning for the transition to digital television. Before the FCC, he served as Acting Associate Administrator at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) as well as initiating a program on Computers, Communications and Information Policy at the National Science Foundation. His academic appointments included faculty positions at the Universities of Iowa, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, and as a research affiliate at Harvard University. He is a board member of the Pacific Telecommunications Council and the UK’s OFCOM Spectrum Advisory Board.  He has been on the boards of the Internet Society, the U.S. Telecommunications Training Institute the U.S. Department of State’s Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Spectrum Management Advisory Committee.  He also is on advisory boards at the University of Wisconsin, Columbia University, and Michigan State University. Pepper received his BA. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.