Susan Eisenhower, President; The Eisenhower Group & Chairman Emeritus; The Eisenhower Institute for Leadership and Public Policy

 

Susan Eisenhower is President of the Eisenhower Group, Inc, which provides strategic counsel on political, business and public affairs projects. She has consulted for Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies doing business in the emerging markets of the former Soviet Union and for a number of major institutions and companies engaged in the energy field. Eisenhower also serves as Chairman of the Eisenhower Institute's Leadership and Public Policy Programs, where she was the Institute's founding director and the first president and became known for her work in the former Soviet Union and in the energy field.

 

In January 2010, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu appointed Eisenhower to serve on the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, which has been tasked with developing a long-term solution for safely managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle.

 

She has testified before the Senate Armed Services and Senate Budget Committees on policy toward the region of the former Soviet Union. She was also appointed to the National Academy of Sciences' standing Committee on International Security and Arms Control, where she served for eight years. She has written extensively on nuclear and space issues and in 2000, a year before September 11, she co-edited a book, Islam and Central Asia, which carried the prescient subtitle, An Enduring Legacy or an Evolving Threat?

 

Over the years, Eisenhower has served on many government task forces. In the spring of 2000, the Secretary of Energy appointed her to a blue ribbon task force, the Baker-Cutler Commission, to evaluate U.S. funded nuclear non-proliferation programs in Russia. Since that time she has served as an advisor on two other DOE studies; one on the threat of nuclear terrorism and the other a blue ribbon panel on the future of nuclear energy. In 2001, after two terms on the NASA Advisory Council, she was appointed to the International Space Station Management and Cost Evaluation Task Force, which analyzed ISS management and cost overruns. She has served as an Academic Fellow of the International Peace and Security program of Carnegie Corporation of New York, as a director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and as an Advisor to Johns Hopkins' Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

 

Susan Eisenhower has been a Fellow at Harvard's JFK School of Government's Institute of Politics and a Distinguished Fellow at the Nixon Center. She currently sits on the Nuclear Threat Initiative board, co-chaired by Senator Sam Nunn and Ted Turner, the Energy Future Coalition and as an advisor to the US Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy and the Air Force Academy's Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies.

 

She serves on the corporate advisory boards of Thorium Power, IxReveal, and Foolproof and is a Senior Director of Stonebridge International, a Washington-based international consulting firm headed by former National Security Advisor, Samuel “Sandy” Berger and former Senator Warren Rudman.

 

Eisenhower has spoken at many diverse types of gatherings: from the nation's most distinguished institutions such as Harvard to countless World Affairs Councils and corporate gatherings. She has also spoken to many expert audiences. For instance, she gave the Commandant's Lecture at the Army War College in Carlisle, the Harry S. Truman Distinguished Lecture at Sandia National Laboratory, and she delivered the 2008 Rose Lecture at MIT in May. She has also given full speeches, by invitation, at other prominent places, such as the National Press Club, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Archives, the Hollywood Bowl, The French National Assembly, the Rotunda of the Capitol and the White House, on two recent occasions.

 

Eisenhower's first professional experience was as a writer. In the 1970s she lived overseas for six years, first while a student at the American University in Paris and then as a London resident and stringer for The Saturday Evening Post. Later she wrote a column for Wolfe Newspapers and went on to write for business, later joining Burson-Marsteller. Eisenhower has authored three trade press books: two of which, Breaking Free and Mrs. Ike, have appeared on regional best seller lists. She has also edited four collected volumes on regional security issues – the most recent –Partners in Space (2004), which was also published in Russia by Nayuk, the publishing house of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

 

She has written chapters for a number of collected volumes and penned hundreds of op-eds and articles on foreign and domestic policy for publications such as The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Naval Institute's Proceedings, The London Spectator, and Gannett Newspapers, as well as the National Interest and Politique Americane. She has provided analysis for CNN International, MSNBC, The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Fox News, the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Hardball with Chris Mathews, One on One with John McLaughlin, the BBC, all three network morning programs, and many more. Over the years she has appeared on many other well-remembered programs such as Nightline, World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, This Week with David Brinkley, and CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt.

 

Eisenhower has appeared on many TV programs and documentaries, including Oliver North's War Stories, Sony Pictures Why We Fight and, most recently, Sputnik Mania.

 

She has received four honorary doctorates, most recently from the Monterey Institute, where she was cited for her work on nuclear non-proliferation. Eisenhower received the 2008 Dolibois History Prize from Miami University, and in 2009 she received the Middelthon-Candler Peace Prize and the Distinguished Diplomat Award from the Virginia Military Institute.