William Burns

Bill Burns is senior advisor for Global Affairs at Evercore. Widely regarded as one of the most distinguished and respected American statesmen of the last century, Mr. Burns has served six U.S. presidents and administrations of both parties.

He most recently was director of the Central Intelligence Agency and a member of President Biden’s Cabinet—the first career diplomat to lead the agency. At the end of three and a half decades in the U.S. Foreign Service, he became only the second serving career officer in history to become the deputy secretary of state. He also served as ambassador to Russia and Jordan, and in a number of other senior posts.

From 2015 to 2021, Mr. Burns served as the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. During those years, he wrote the best-selling book The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal.

He is the recipient of numerous U.S. government awards, foreign decorations and honorary degrees. He was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2024, and was among the “50 for the Future” selected by Time in 1994 as America’s most promising leaders age 40 and under.

Mr. Burns is married to Ambassador Lisa Carty and is the proud father of two daughters. He earned a bachelor’s from LaSalle University, and master’s and doctoral degrees from Oxford University, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar.