Ambassador Robert Hormats
Robert Hormats has been a senior official in the administrations of five different American presidents of both political parties, a top executive on Wall Street and a major business leader working with companies in the United States and throughout the world. His most recent government job was Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment.
Hormats began his career as Senior Staff Member for Economic Policy on the National Security Council Staff in 1969. During his tenure, he served as senior advisor to Dr. Henry Kissinger, General Brent Scowcroft, and Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski. In this capacity, he was responsible for international economic policy, global energy issues, foreign trade and investment matters and monetary/financial issues.
Hormats played a major role in the opening of U.S. relations with China as Senior White House Economic Advisor to Dr. Kissinger during the early 1970s, the American response to the global energy crisis of the 1970s, international trade negotiations and resolving several financial crises involving Asia, Russia, Latin America, and the U.S. He also participated in American Middle East Diplomacy in the 1970s and 1980s under Dr. Kissinger, including Shuttle Diplomacy after the 1973 Arab- Israel War.
For 25 years, Hormats was a senior member of Goldman Sachs. He held numerous positions in the investment banking division. As his responsibilities broadened, he rose to the level of Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs (International).
He is currently lecturing regularly at Yale University’s School of Management and recently was a Pacific Leadership Fellow at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. He is also Chairman of the Board of the RAND Center for Asia and Pacific Policy. For several years Hormats was a member of the Secretary of Defense’s high level Defense Policy Board chaired by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.
He is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Tower Corporation and an advisor to Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, a 5G Technology Company, Cohere, and a Quantum Computing Company, EeroQ. For several years while at Goldman Sachs, he was also on the International Advisory Council of Toyota and the Board of Human Genome Sciences Corporation.
In the past, Hormats has served on the Board of Visitors of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the Dean’s Council of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Economic Club of New York.
Hormats has been awarded the French Legion of Honor by the President of France and the Commanders Cross of the Order of Merit by the President of Germany. He has lived in Germany and East Africa.
Hormats appears as a regular guest on CNBC, Bloomberg , CNN and Fox. His publications include The Price of Liberty: Paying for America’s Wars from the Revolution to the War on Terror; Abraham Lincoln and the Global Economy; and Reforming the International Monetary System.
Hormats earned a BA from Tufts University in 1965, an MA in 1966 and a PhD in 1970 in International Economics from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts.