Christopher J. Makins has been president of the Atlantic Council of the United States since September 1999. Mr. Makins also serves as an adviser to corporations and nonprofit organizations in the United States and Europe. Before joining the Atlantic Council, Mr. Makins served as a senior adviser to the German Marshall Fund of the United States (1997-99). From 1989 to 1997, he was vice president and then executive vice president of the Aspen Institute.

Mr. Makins, a U.S. and British dual national, began his career by serving as a member of Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service for 11 years. After leaving the service, Mr. Makins worked as deputy director of the Trilateral Commission (1975-76), at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington (1977-79), as a division manager and as assistant vice president at Science Applications International Corporation (1979-89), and at the Roosevelt Center for American Policy Studies (1984-88).

From 1981 to 1994, Mr. Makins worked in partnership with former U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Ellsworth to provide a regular newsletter on U.S. foreign-economic and defense policy and domestic politics. Mr. Makins has also served on several corporate and nonprofit boards and has published widely on issues related to trans-Atlantic relations and East-West negotiations.

Mr. Makins earned a first-class honors degree in Modern History from New College, Oxford, in 1963, and was elected a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, the same year.