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

Flournoy 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.

Flournoy 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. She serves on the advisory boards of The Leadership Council for Women in National Security, Special Competitive Studies Project, Sesame Workshop, Intel, RAND Corporation, and PIMCO. She is a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, a Distinguished Professor of the Practice at Georgia Tech’s Nunn School of International Affairs, a current member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group, and a current member of the Defense Policy Board.

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