The Honorable Douglas Wilson

Doug Wilson was nominated to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs in 2009 and served until March 2012 as the senior spokesman and principal communications advisor for the Department of Defense. The first openly-gay individual to be Senate-confirmed to a senior Pentagon position, Wilson led a worldwide public affairs community (the US government’s largest) of several thousand military and civilian personnel.

During his tenure as ASD/PA, Wilson was responsible for the development and implementation of Pentagon communication strategies on issues including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, China, Russia, the “Arab Spring”, the budget, sexual assault prevention, WikiLeaks, NATO, military commissions at Guantanamo, journalist safety on the battlefield, military families, wounded warriors, cyber security and counterterrorism, including communications in the aftermath of the death of Osama bin Laden. He played a key role in the Pentagon and across government for the repeal of the “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” legislation, and conceived and helped to implement the first-ever White House “state dinner” honoring men and women from all US states and territories and all Service branches who served on the battlefield in Iraq.

Wilson also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs during the Clinton Administration. He has three times (1999, 2001 and 2012) been awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Pentagon’s top civilian honor.

A native of Tucson, Arizona and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Wilson previously served as Board Member and Executive Vice President of the Howard Gilman Foundation, overseeing the development and implementation of the Foundation’s domestic and international policy programs at White Oak, including a series of National Security Network pre-Obama conclaves co-organized by former Council on Foreign Relations President Les Gelb.

Wilson is also the former President of The Leaders Project, the decade-long global successor generation leadership initiative which he co-founded in 2001 with former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen. More than 400 public and civil society leaders from around the world participated in these seminal successor-generation leadership conferences on topics including India, Russia, the Pacific Rim, Pakistan, Europe, Islamic societies, women as leaders of change, public diplomacy, health and economic development, oil and water, international development assistance and veteran and military families issues.

He has served as a senior strategic communications consultant for such companies as Boeing (including communications work on the F-18, EELV, and missile defense) and Microsoft (including communications work on trade, competition with Google and Apple, global corporate responsibility and anti-piracy initiatives that led to over $1 billion in savings to Microsoft); as National Political Director of the Democratic Leadership Council; as Director of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs and Senior Advisor to the Director for the U.S. Information Agency; as chief foreign policy advisor to presidential candidates Gary Hart, Martin O’Malley and Pete Buttigieg; and as a Foreign Service Information Officer, serving at U.S. diplomatic posts in Naples, Rome, and London – the latter as press secretary during the period of the Iran hostage crisis.

In 1996, he led the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign team in his home state of Arizona, resulting in the first Democratic presidential victory in that state since 1948. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Wilson assembled and led the 550-member foreign policy team for his longtime friend Pete Buttigieg, including conceiving and developing Buttigieg’s major 2019 foreign policy address at Indiana University and overseeing development of Buttigieg policy initiatives on China, North Korea, AUMF, Israel-Palestine, veterans and military families, alliance restoration, sanctions policies and recruitment and retention of a new generation of civilian national security workforce members.

Wilson was the founding Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Public Diplomacy Collaborative at Harvard University and a co-founder of the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Initiative. He has also served as Vice President for Development for Business Executives for National Security; as a Vice President for The Cohen Group and Penn, Schoen Berland; and has served on the Boards of Directors of Third Way, HDI, the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy, the National Security Network and Blue Star Families, the nation’s largest military family support organization.

He was Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Advisors for the Truman National Security Project/Center for National Policy; is on the Advisory Boards of America Abroad Media and the Center for Security in Politics at UC Berkeley’s Goldman Center; and was co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Vets’ Community Connections, a San Diego-based initiative, founded in partnership with the National Association of Counties and the Wounded Warrior Project, to bring a broader spectrum of Americans into community reintegration efforts for returning veterans and their families.

He resides with his partner of 25 years in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and Miami.