image00 Ambassador R. James Woolsey, a former Director of Central Intelligence, chairs the board of Foundation for Defense of Democracies and is a Venture Partner with Lux Capital Management.

Woolsey also currently chairs the Strategic Advisory Group of Washington, D.C. private equity fund. Paladin Capital Group and the Advisory Board of the Opportunities Development Group, and he is Of Counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of the Boston-based law firm, Goodwin Proctor. In the above capacities he specializes in a range of alternative energy and security issues.

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. 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 until January 2011. He was also previously a partner at the law firm of Shea & Gardner in Washington, D.C. now Goodwin Proctor, where he practiced for 22 years in the fields of civil litigation, arbitration and mediation.

During his 12 years of government service, in addition to heading the CIA and the Intelligence Community, Mr. Woolsey was: Ambassador to the Negotiation on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFF) 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. Army, he was an advisor on the U.S. Delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I). Helsinki and Vienna, 1969-1970.

Ambassador Woolsey currently serves on a range of government, corporate, and non-profit advisory boards and chairs several, including the Advisory Boards of the Clean Fuels Foundation and the New Uses Council, and he is a Trustee of the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments. Previously he was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Regents of The Smithsonian Institution, and a trustee of Stanford University. He is also a member of The National Commission on Terrorism. 1999-2000: The Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the U.S. (Rumsfeld Commission). 1998: The President’s Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform. 1989: The President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management (Packard Commission), 1985-1986: and the President’s Commission on Strategic Forces (Scowcroft Commission), 1983.

Ambassador Woolsey has served in the past as a member of boards of directors of a number of publicly and privately held companies, generally in fields related to technology and security, including Martin Marietta: British Aerospace, Inc.; Fairchild Industries; and Yurie Systems, Inc. In 2009, he was Annenberg Distinguished Visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and in 2010-11 he was a Senior Fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.

Ambassador Woolsey was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and attended Tulsa public schools, graduating from Tulsa Central High School. He received his B.A. degree from Stanford University (1963, With Great Distinction, Phi Beta Kappa), an M.A. for Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar 1963-1965) and an LLB from Yale Law School (1968, Managing Editor of the Yale Law Journal).

Ambassador Woolsey is a frequent contributor of the 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, Robert, Daniel and Benjamin.