Michèle Flournoy

Co-Founder & Managing Partner, WestExec Advisors

Michèle Flournoy is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of WestExec Advisors, and Co-Founder, former Chief Executive Officer, and now Chair of Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

Michèle served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from February 2009 to February 2012. She was the principal advisor 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.

Michèle serves on the boards of CNAS, Booz Allen Hamilton, Amida Technology Solutions, The Mission Continues, and CARE. She serves on the advisory boards of The Leadership Council for Women in National Security, Sesame Workshop, Intel, and PIMCO. She is a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affair, a current member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group, and a former member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, the CIA Director’s External Advisory Board and the Defense Policy Board.

Michèle earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a master’s from Balliol College, Oxford University, where she was a Newton-Tatum scholar.