Chuck Hagel was most recently a two-term U.S. Senator from Nebraska (1997-2009). Among Chairmanships he held during his career in the Senate were: the Securities, and International Trade and Finance Subcommittees of the Banking Committee; the International Monetary and Economic Affairs Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee; the Senate Global Climate Change Observer Group; and the Senate Oversight Task Force. He also served as co-chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (and wrote the legislation that authorized it), and the NATO Observer Group. Senator Hagel was a member of four Senate committees: Foreign Relations; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; the Select Committee on Intelligence; and the Committee on Rules and Administration.

Prior to his election to the Senate, Senator Hagel was president of the McCarthy Capital Corporation, an investment banking firm in Omaha (where he is now a senior adviser) and Chairman of American Information Systems (AIS). Senator Hagel was a co-founder of Vanguard Cellular Systems, Inc., a publicly traded company, and served as president and chief executive officer of World USO; the Private Sector Council; chief operating officer of the 1990 Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations (G-7); and deputy administrator, U.S. Veterans Administration.

Senator Hagel is currently a distinguished professor at Georgetown University and the University of Nebraska at Omaha; Co-Chairman of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board; the Chairman of the Atlantic Council; a member of the Secretary of Defense’s Defense Policy Board and the Board of Directors of Public Broadcasting Service (“PBS”). He also serves on the Advisory Boards of Deutsche Bank Americas; Pfizer’s Emerging Markets and Developed Economies Boards; M.I.C. Industries; and National Interest Security Company (“NISC”). He is a Director of Wolfensohn and Company and the Zurich Holding Company of America; and is a Senior Advisor to McCarthy Capital Corporation. He serves on many charitable and public service boards, and is the author of the highly-regarded book, America: Our Next Chapter: Tough Questions, Straight Answers, published by HarperCollins in 2008 and was the subject of a 2006 biography entitled Chuck Hagel, Moving Forward.