Commentator, editor, teacher, public servant, best-selling author and adviser to presidents – for 30 years, David Gergen has been an active participant in American national life. He served as director of communications for President Reagan and held positions in the administrations of Presidents Nixon and Ford. In 1993, he put his country before politics when he agreed to first serve as counselor to President Clinton on both foreign policy and domestic affairs, then as special international adviser to the president and to Secretary of State Warren Christopher.
David Gergen is a professor of public service and the director of the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is also editor-at-large at U.S. News & World Report and is a Senior Political Analyst for CNN. Mr. Gergen also regularly serves as an analyst on radio shows, and he is a frequent lecturer at venues around the world. In the fall of 2000 he published a best-selling book titled, Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership, Nixon to Clinton.
In the past, Mr. Gergen has served in the White House as an adviser to four Presidents: Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. Most recently, he served for 18 months in the Clinton administration, first as Counselor to the President and then as Special Adviser to the President and the Secretary of State. He returned to private life in January 1995.
From 1984 to 1993, Mr. Gergen worked mostly as a journalist. For some two-and-a-half years, he was editor of U.S. News. Working with the owner and editor-in-chief Mortimer Zuckerman and a revived staff, he helped to guide the magazine to record gains in circulation and advertising. During that period, he also teamed up with Mark Shields for political commentary every Friday night for five years on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. The two were a popular political team and won numerous accolades for their political coverage.
A native of Durham, North Carolina, Mr. Gergen is an honors graduate of Yale University (A.B., 1963) and the Harvard Law School (JD, 1967). He is a member of the D.C. bar. In addition, Mr. Gergen served for three-and-a-half years in the U.S. Navy, where he was posted for about two years to a ship home-ported in Japan.
Mr. Gergen is active on many boards, including Duke University and Teach for America. He frequently lectures here in the United States and overseas and holds 18 honorary degrees.
Mr. Gergen has been married since 1967 to Anne Gergen of England. She is a family therapist and they live in Cambridge, Mass. They have two children, Christopher and Katherine, and four grandchildren.
Additional Information
For more information about David Gergen's role at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and at the Center for Public Leadership, please visit http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/leadership
For more information about David Gergen's work at U.S. News and World Report, please visit www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/dgergen.ht…
David Gergen serves for the following organizations:
Current Non-Profit Boards
Aspen Institute
Boston Museum Project
Campaign Against Teen Pregnancy
Center for Global Development
Center for the Study of the Presidency
City Year
Duke University
Morehouse College Leadership Institute
Schwab Foundation for Social Enterprise
Teach for America
World Resources Institute
Among previous boards: Yale Corporation
Current Advisory Roles
Chair, National Selection Committee for Innovations in American Government
Co-chair, National Selection Committee, America’s Best Leaders (co-sponsored by U.S. News and Center for Public Leadership, Kennedy School)
Chair, National Advisory Board, Duke University
Chair, National Advisory Board, Elon University Law
School Chair, Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery Peck Presidential Awards (for service to U.S. presidency)
Member, Selection committees for Social Capitalist Awards (best social entrepreneurs, U.S.)
Civic Venture Purpose Prize Awards (citizens over 60 creating social change)
Scholarship committees at Harvard for George, Reynolds and Zuckerman Fellows (fellowships created through the Center for Public Leadership for students committing to service for the common good)
For-Profit Boards
Bright Horizons
Intel (former)
Professional Memberships
Council on Foreign Relations
Trilateral Commission
