As a Carnegie fellow, he wrote Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power. In addition, he is chairman and CEO of The Rothkopf Group, LLC, a consulting firm, and Garten Rothkopf LLC, a firm that focuses on emerging markets. He previously was a founder and CEO of Intellibridge, a strategic analysis firm in Washington D.C., United States. A prolific writer, Rothkopf has authored more than 150 articles on international issues for a variety of publications, most recently for the Washington Post and Intellibridge's Homeland Security Monitor. He is a 1977 graduate of Columbia College and attended Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has also been an invited speaker and broadcast on radio NPR.
He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Latin America and a former member of the Independent Task Force on Colombia
He has been critical of the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI and has argued that his selection in the 2005 conclave was "a mistake".
In his latest book, Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making, he argues that geography, pedigree, networking and luck unite a superclass of 6000 individuals that possess the unparalleled power over world affairs.