About

John is a recently-retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general, an inspirational leader, a keen strategist, a passionate innovator, and a national security expert. He has vast whole-of-government leadership experience that includes military, diplomatic, intelligence, and industrial instruments of power – from cutting-edge technology to our nation’s most sensitive international relationships.

John retired as the Assistant Deputy Undersecretary of the Air Force, International Affairs, responsible for worldwide international engagement on behalf of the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force while leading the services’ entire $240 billion security cooperation portfolio. Prior to that, John was the Senior Defense Official and Defense Attaché to Iraq, leading on the front lines of whole-of-government national security strategy and policy in the most challenging of environments. He has been an F-15E combat pilot, an F-22 test pilot, the commander of Joint Base Andrews (also known as America’s Airfield), and the commander of Edwards Air Force Base (also known as the Center of the Aerospace Testing Universe).

John has written and spoken extensively on leadership, innovation, technology, national security, security cooperation, cross-cultural relationships, risk management, resilience, and international affairs. He holds engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, and is the founder and president of Capital Leadership LLC, passionately developing the leaders our nation needs.