Admiral Jim Stavridis

A Florida native, Admiral Jim Stavridis attended the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, and spent 37 years in the Navy, rising to the rank of 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 the US Southern Command in Miami, charged with military operations through Latin America for nearly three years. He is the longest serving Combatant Commander in recent US history. Following his military career, he served for five years as the 12th Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

In the course of his career in the Navy, Admiral Stavridis 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 rank 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 more than 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.

Admiral Stavridis earned a PhD from The Fletcher School at Tufts, winning the Gullion prize as 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.

Admiral Stavridis has published ten books, on leadership, the oceans, maritime affairs, and Latin America, as well as hundreds of articles in leading journals. An active user of social networks, he has tens of thousands of connections. His 2012 TED talk on 21st century security has close to one million views. He tweeted the end of combat operations in the Libyan NATO intervention. His two most recent books are “Sailing True North: Ten Admirals and the Voyage of Character,” in 2019, and the novel “2034: A Novel of the Next World War,” in 2021.

Admiral Stavridis is a monthly columnist for TIME Magazine and chief international security and diplomacy analyst for NBC News. 

He is happily married to Laura, and they have two daughters – one working at Google and the other a registered nurse and former naval officer, both married to physicians.