Michèle Flournoy is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of WestExec Advisors, and a Co-Founder, former Chief Executive Officer, and now Chair of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). She served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from February 2009 to February 2012. She was the principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense in the formulation of national security and defense policy, oversight of military plans and operations, and in National Security Council deliberations. She led the development of the Department of Defense’s 2012 Strategic Guidance and represented the Department in dozens of foreign engagements, in the media, and before Congress. Prior to confirmation, Ms. Flournoy co-led President Obama’s transition team at the Defense Department. In January 2007, Ms. Flournoy co-founded CNAS, a non-partisan think tank dedicated to developing strong, pragmatic, and principled national security policies. She served as CNAS’ President until 2009 and returned as CEO in 2014. In 2017, she co-founded WestExec Advisors, a strategic advisory firm. Previously, she was a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies for several years and, prior to that, a distinguished research professor at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University (NDU). In the mid-1990s, she served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Threat Reduction and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy. She has received numerous honors and awards, including from the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She has edited several books and authored dozens of reports and articles on a broad range of defense and national security issues., and appears frequently in national and international media and is frequently quoted in top tier newspapers. She serves on the boards of CNAS, Booz Allen Hamilton, Astra, Amida Technology Solutions, America’s Frontier Fund, The Gates Global Policy Center, The Mission Continues, The War Horse, and CARE, and serves on the advisory boards of several other organizations, including Spirit of America. Ms. Flournoy earned a bachelor’s degree in social studies from Harvard University and a master’s degree in international relations from Balliol College, Oxford University, where she was a Newton-Tatum scholar.