Washington, D.C., June 11, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace announced today that Avril Haines will become its next president. She assumes the role on September 28, 2026, succeeding Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar.
“Avril Haines is an extraordinary leader whose trusted voice shaped some of the toughest global decisions. Her intellectual depth is coupled with genuine moral purpose and a belief that the right ideas can make the world more peaceful and more just. Avril is the right person to lead Carnegie at this consequential moment,” said Jane Hartley, Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“The world is grappling with rapid technological change, intensifying conflicts, and institutions struggling to respond. I’ve seen the weight of these issues firsthand, and from the inside, you learn both the power and the limits of what governments can do alone. Often, the ideas that are capable of galvanizing action come from the outside, and no one brings the rigor, depth, and global perspective to that work like Carnegie. I’m honored to lead Carnegie at this consequential moment alongside the world’s leading scholars to bring the sharp ideas that can pave a path toward peace,” said Avril Haines, incoming president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Confirmed with overwhelming bipartisan support, Avril Haines was the former U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and a member of the cabinet from 2021 to 2025, during which she led the U.S. intelligence community and served as the president’s principal intelligence adviser. Prior to her tenure as DNI, she held high-profile national security roles, including as principal deputy national security advisor in the Obama White House, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and deputy chief counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She has also worked as a senior research scholar at Columbia University. A lawyer by training, she has been a law clerk for Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and a legal officer at the Hague Conference on Private International Law. Haines studied physics at the University of Chicago and earned her JD from Georgetown University Law Center, where she studied international law. She also founded and then ran a bookstore café in Baltimore for five years. For the past year, Haines was a visiting fellow at All Souls College at Oxford University and a Carnegie distinguished fellow at the Institute of Global Politics, Columbia University.
For more information, including photos of Haines, a longer biography, and a letter from Jane Hartley following the announcement, please visit: https://carnegieendowment.org/about/our-next-president
About the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
Founded in 1910, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a global think tank that generates strategic ideas and independent analysis, supports diplomacy, and trains the next generation of scholar-practitioners to help countries and institutions take on the most difficult global problems and advance peace.
Katelynn Vogt Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Katelynn.Vogt@ceip.org
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