The Hon. Robert Hormats

Robert Hormats has been a senior official in the administrations of five different American presidents, a top executive on Wall Street and 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 in the Obama Administration. He is currently Managing Director of Tiedemann Advisors just prior to assuming that position in March of last year, he was Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates.   

Bob began his career as Senior Staff Member on the National Security Council Staff in 1972. During his tenure, he served as senior advisor to Dr. Henry Kissinger, General Brent Scowcroft and Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagen White Houses. In these capacities, he was responsible for international economic policy, global energy issues, foreign trade and investment matters and monetary/financial issues. He played a major role in the opening up of US relations with China, the American response to the global energy crisis of the 1970s, international trade negotiations and resolving a number of financial crises involving Asia, Latin America and the US. 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.   

Following his years on the National Security Council Staff, Bob served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, Deputy US Trade Representative with the rank of Ambassador and Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, In those capacities, he was a leading US governmental official on global trade and investment negotiations, represented the US at Group of Seven Economic Summits, was US co-chair of bilateral commissions with India, China, the EU and Brazil.    

In 1982, Bob moved to Goldman Sachs where he started out as a Vice President, moved up to Managing Director and ultimately became Vice Chairman Goldman Sachs (International). In these positions, over a 25 year career at the firm, he played a key role on a variety of international economic and financial matters, including privatizations of foreign state enterprises in countries such as China, Singapore, Britain, Germany and Mexico. He also was part of Goldman Sachs teams that structured and underwrote bond and stock issues in the US and abroad. He also was the firm’s leading spokesman regarding the economic and financial outlook for the global economy and many key financial and investment markets. 

In 2009, Bob was asked by Secretary Clinton to become Under Secretary of State for Economic and Energy Affairs. In time his job expanded. Following a restructuring of the Department, he became Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment. In this capacity he was the Secretary’s senior advisor in these areas. He also was responsible for leading the efforts of the State Department in the planning of G-8 and G-20 Economic Summits as well as bilateral economic negotiations with China, Japan, India, Russia, Brazil, the EU, South Africa and various other countries.    

Bob accompanied President Obama and Secretary Clinton on several Summits and high level economic visits to these countries and others. He also led US Government and US business delegations to these countries and to international groups such as ASEAN. One of his major roles also was to plan and implement Secretary Clinton’s “Economic Statecraft” policy to support American business and exports abroad, focusing on areas such as intellectual property protection, protection of trade secrets, ensuring a level playing field vis a vis foreign state-owned enterprises and reducing barriers to trade and investment. 

In 2013, Bob became Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates, the New York based strategic international consulting firm that assesses and navigates emerging market geopolitical and macroeconomic risk for its clients. Bob has extensive experience on matters related to Western Europe, Japan, China, Korea, India, Russia, the Middle East and South East Asia. His substantive areas of expertise include international trade and investment, international telecommunications and information standards and regulation, intellectual property protection, foreign investment in the US and US investment abroad, protection of trade secrets and global energy issues.    

Bob has been a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University. He is currently a Visiting Lecturer at the Yale School of Management, where he lectures one day a week on US international foreign, trade and financial policy; prior to which he was an Adjunct Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and 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. Bob recently was a member of the high level Defense Policy Board appointed by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the American Tower Corporation and sits on the Domestic Advisory Board of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. In the past he has been a Board Member of Human Genome Sciences Corporation and a Member of the Advisory Board the Toyota Corporation. He also is advisor to an early stage pharmaceutical company doing Alzheimer’s research, a company developing advanced, second generation 5G technology and a start up company developing new technologies for quantum computing.    

Bob 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.    

Bob 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.    

Bob appears as a regular guest on CNBC, Bloomberg 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.   

Bob 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.