Atlantic Council

Biography

Chuck Hagel

Chuck Hagel is Chairman of the Atlantic Council.

Chuck Hagel is a Distinguished Professor at Georgetown University and the University of Nebraska at Omaha.  He is Co-Chairman of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board; a member of the Secretary of Defense’s Policy Board and Secretary of Energy’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future; and is a member of Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) board of directors.  He also serves on the Advisory Boards of Deutsche Bank Americas; Corsair Capital; Pfizer’s Emerging Markets and Developed Economies Boards; M.I.C. Industries; National Interest Security Company (NISC); is a Director of the Zurich Holding Company of America; and is a Senior Advisor to McCarthy Capital Corporation.

Hagel served two terms in the United States Senate (1997-2009) representing the state of Nebraska.  Hagel was a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; and Intelligence Committees.  He Chaired the Foreign Relations International Economic Policy, Export and Trade Promotion Subcommittee; and the Banking Committee’s International Trade and Finance; and Securities Subcommittees.  Hagel also served as the Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and the Senate Climate Change Observer Group.

Hagel is the author of the recently published America: Our Next Chapter, a straight forward examination of the current state of our nation that provides substantial proposals for the challenges of the 21st century.

He serves on the advisory boards of directors of many institutions including: America Abroad Media; Center for the Study of the Presidency; Director Emeritus, the Eisenhower World Affairs Institute; the German Marshall Fund’s Trade and Poverty Forum; Global Zero Campaign; Harvard University Institute of Politics; Initiative for Global Development; Lung Cancer Alliance’s Honorary Board of Directors; Ploughshares Fund; and the U.S. Middle East Project.  He is a Trustee of Bellevue University and is co-chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Corporate Council.

Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Hagel was president of McCarthy & Company, an investment banking firm in Omaha, Nebraska.  In the mid-1980’s, Hagel co-founded VANGUARD Cellular Systems, Inc., a publicly traded corporation.  He is a Vietnam combat veteran and former Deputy Administrator of the Veterans Administration.

A graduate of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Hagel and his wife, Lilibet, have a son (Ziller) and daughter (Allyn).