Chris Voss

Chris is a consultant with Triad Consulting Group. He is a retired 24 year veteran of the FBI, and an Adjunct Professor who teaches negotiation at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. While with the FBI, Chris was the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator. Chris has led negotiation teams across the globe, from Baghdad to Bogotá and is a seasoned negotiator, teacher and leader. Chris is also the founder of The Black Swan Group.

Chris was trained as an FBI hostage negotiator in 1992, and became a member of the FBI’s elite Crisis Negotiation Unit (CNU) in 2000, staying there for seven years. While with the CNU Chris designed, implemented and managed negotiations with hostage takers, both domestically and internationally. He served as the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator from 2003 to 2007. His adversaries were the ultimate in “difficult negotiators” – terrorists, drug lords, and guerilla groups, each pursuing their interests and causes via violence.

Chris was also one of the primary instructors and designers of the FBI’s National Crisis Negotiation Course, run several times annually at FBI Headquarters in Quantico, VA. He and his colleagues recruited, trained and organized a 90 person team of FBI negotiators ready to deploy anywhere on the globe, on short notice, to respond to kidnappings of Americans internationally. Chris led this team, integrating their efforts with those of numerous US and international host country agencies.

Chris also served as the FBI’s hostage negotiation subject matter expert for the National Security Council's Hostage Working Group and the US hostage negotiation expert to the G-8. He was a member of the New York City Joint Terrorist Task Force for 14 years (from 1986 – 2000) and was the lead Negotiator for the FBI in New York City. During this time period in New York City, Chris also  served as the Chair of the Board of Help Line, a crisis intervention hot line in New York City founded by Norman Vincent Peale.

Chris is a recipient of the Attorney General's Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement and the FBI Agents Association Award for Distinguished and Exemplary Service.

Chris is trained by the FBI, Scotland Yard (the London Metropolitan Police) and Harvard Law School. He served as a member of the negotiation teaching staff at Harvard Law School in 2008 and co-taught a course on International Business Negotiation at Harvard in 2009.

Chris completed a Master's in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2008. He currently lives in the Washington D.C. area.