Jim Stavridis attended the US Naval Academy at Annapolis and spent 37 years in the Navy, rising to 4-star Admiral. Among his many commands were four years as the 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, where he oversaw operations in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, the Balkans, and counter-piracy off the coast of Africa. He also commanded US Southern Command in Miami and military operations through Latin America for nearly three years. He was the longest-serving Combatant Commander in recent US history. Following his military career, he served five years as the 12th Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

During his career in the Navy, he served as senior military assistant to the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of Defense. He led the Navy’s premier operational think tank for innovation, Deep Blue, immediately after the 9/11 attacks. Admiral Stavridis was promoted directly from 1-star to 3-star rank in 2004. He won the Battenberg Cup for commanding the top ship in the Atlantic Fleet and the Navy League John Paul Jones Award for Inspirational Leadership, along with over 50 US and international medals and decorations, including 28 from foreign nations. He also commanded a Destroyer Squadron and a Carrier Strike Group, both in combat.

In 2016, he was vetted for Vice President by Secretary Hillary Clinton and subsequently invited to Trump Tower to discuss a cabinet position with President Donald Trump.

An active user of social networks, he has tens of thousands of connections on social networks. His TED talk on 21st-century security in 2012 has close to one million views. He tweeted the end of combat operations in the Libyan NATO intervention.

Admiral Stavridis has published thirteen books on leadership, character, risk, the oceans, maritime affairs, and Latin America, as well as hundreds of articles in leading journals. Two of his most popular books are 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, which was a New York Times bestseller and is being published in 22 languages, and To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and The Crucible of Decision. His most recent book is 2054, about artificial intelligence and geopolitics.

Admiral Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and Chief International Security Analyst for NBC News.

He earned a PhD from The Fletcher School at Tufts, winning the Gullion prize as the outstanding student in his class in 1983, as well as academic honors from the National and Naval War Colleges as a distinguished student. He speaks Spanish and French.