James Woolsey

James Woolsey Speaker Biography

Former Director of the CIA, Ambassador, and Under Secretary of the Navy, and Green Neoconservative

R. James Woolsey is a Venture Partner with VantagePoint Venture Partners and is the Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University; chairs the Strategic Advisory Group of the Washington, D.C. private equity fund, Paladin Capital Group; and is Of Counsel to the Washington, D.C. office of the Boston-based law firm, Goodwin Procter. In the above capacities he specializes in a range of alternative energy and security issues.

Career

Mr. Woolsey previously served in the U.S. Government on five different occasions, where he held Presidential appointments in two Republican and two Democratic administrations, most recently (1993-95) as Director of Central Intelligence. From July 2002 to March 2008 Mr. Woolsey was a Vice President and officer of Booz Allen Hamilton. He was also previously a partner at the law firm of Shea & Gardner in Washington, DC, now Goodwin Procter, where he practiced for 22 years in the fields of civil litigation, arbitration, and mediation.

Government

During his 12 years of government service, in addition to heading the CIA and the Intelligence Community, Mr. Woolsey was: Ambassador to the Negotiation on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), Vienna, 1989-1991; Under Secretary of the Navy, 1977-1979; and General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, 1970-1973. He was also appointed by the President to serve on a part-time basis in Geneva, Switzerland, 1983-1986, as Delegate at Large to the U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) and Nuclear and Space Arms Talks (NST). As an officer in the U.S. Army, he was an adviser on the U.S. Delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I), Helsinki and Vienna, 1969-1970.

Advisory Boards

Mr. Woolsey serves on a range of government, corporate, and non-profit advisory boards and chairs several, including that of the Washington firm, ExecutiveAction LLC. He serves on the National Commission on Energy Policy. He is currently Co-Chairman (with former Secretary of State George Shultz) of the Committee on the Present Danger. He is Chairman of the Advisory Boards of the Clean Fuels Foundation and the New Uses Council, and a Trustee of the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments. Previously he was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Regents of The Smithsonian Institution, and a trustee of Stanford University. He has also been a member of The National Commission on Terrorism, 1999-2000; The Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the U.S. (Rumsfeld Commission), 1998; The President’s Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform, 1989; The President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management (Packard Commission), 1985-1986; and The President’s Commission on Strategic Forces (Scowcroft Commission), 1983.

Boards of Directors

Mr. Woolsey has served in the past as a member of boards of directors of a number of publicly and privately held companies, generally in fields related to technology and security, including Martin Marietta; British Aerospace, Inc.; Fairchild Industries; and Yurie Systems, Inc.

Education

Mr. Woolsey was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and attended Tulsa public schools, graduating from Tulsa Central High School. He received his B.A. degree from Stanford University (1963, With Great Distinction, Phi Beta Kappa), an M.A. from Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar 1963-1965), and an LL.B from Yale Law School (1968, Managing Editor of the Yale Law Journal).

Keynote Speaker

Mr. Woolsey is a frequent contributor of articles to major publications and gives public speeches and media interviews on the subjects of foreign affairs, defense, energy, and intelligence.