LIEUTENANT GENERAL (RETIRED) CHARLES W. HOOPER, US ARMY

Board of Trustees

Lieutenant General (Retired) Charles Hooper is well-known and widely recognized as one of America’s most distinguished soldier-diplomats and known as a conceptual and analytical thinker, a consummate negotiator, a trusted advisor who effectively navigates complex, sensitive issues and challenges, and a catalyst for collaboration and cooperation.

Lieutenant General Hooper has over 40 years of experience in security policy formulation and execution; strategic intelligence; security cooperation; sensitive negotiations; foreign military sales; education and transformational leadership. A fluent Chinese linguist with almost seven years living and working in China, he is considered one of the Nation’s foremost experts on the Chinese military and defense industries.

In addition to operational assignments with the US Army’s 25^th Infantry and 82^nd Airborne Divisions and teaching Chinese Foreign Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School, Lieutenant General Hooper had three high profile diplomatic assignments including serving as the U.S. Defense Attaché—the senior U.S. military officer, in both China and Egypt.  Lieutenant General Hooper also served the senior DOD strategist and planner for U.S. Africa Command and deputy strategy and plans director for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and as the senior China and Taiwan policy official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

In his final military assignment, he was Director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, responsible for the overseas sale of all weapons, military equipment, support services and training packages for the United States Government. This included oversight of 20,000 people globally and over $50 billion in annual sales. In that capacity he served as the Department of Defense expert on U.S. security assistance funding and U.S. foreign military sales.

Lieutenant General Hooper is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, West Point (BS), and Harvard University Kennedy School of Government (MPA) where he was awarded the Don K. Price Award for Academic Excellence and Public Service. He returned to Harvard University as a post-graduate research fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs studying U.S.-China military relations.

Among his numerous honors, Lieutenant General Hooper was awarded the National Defense Medal by the French Government and in 1989 was the first Army student-officer and first Harvard Kennedy School of Government student ever selected to give a Harvard University Commencement Address.

Lieutenant General Hooper is currently a Senior Counselor at The Cohen Group; the Washington, DC-based international consulting firm founded by former Senator and Secretary of Defense William Cohen. He is a member of the National Bureau of Asian Research and Education Board Partners Boards of Directors, the National World War Two Museum Board of Trustees and is a Senior Fellow at the Harvard University’s Belfer Center. He is also a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  A member of the Congressional School family since 2017, he is the proud father of Kaitlyn Hooper ’25.