The Honorable R. James Woolsey
Jim Woolsey is Chairman of Woolsey Partners LLC and a Venture Partner with Lux Capital Management. He also Chairs the Board of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and is a Senior Fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.
Mr. Woolsey currently chairs the Strategic Advisory Group of the Washington, D.C. private equity fund, Paladin Capital Group, and he is Of Counsel to the Washington, D.C. office of the Boston-based law firm, Goodwin Procter, where he previously practiced for 22 years in the fields of civil litigation, arbitration, and mediation.
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, and then a Venture Partner with VantagePoint Venture Partners of San Bruno, California until January 2011.
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.
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 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. In 2009, he was the Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Mr. Woolsey 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).
Mr. Woolsey is a frequent contributor of articles to major publications, and from time to time gives public speeches and media interviews on the subjects of energy, foreign affairs, defense, and intelligence. He is married to Suzanne Haley Woolsey and they have three sons.
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