The Aspen Institute

Chris Howard is the executive vice president and chief operating officer of Arizona State University. He is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and earned a doctorate from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He also earned an M.B.A. with distinction from Harvard Business School. Dr. Howard’s military career included service as a helicopter pilot and an intelligence officer, and he was awarded a Bronze Star for service in Afghanistan. Dr. Howard was previously president of Robert Morris University, president of Hamden Sydney-College, a vice president at the University of Oklahoma, and had a successful corporate career with GE and Bristol-Myers Squibb. He is also a former member of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. Dr. Howard is a trustee on the Harvard University Board of Overseers and also serves on the Board of Directors of AvalonBay Communities, a publicly traded real estate corporation. Dr. Howard is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Young Presidents Organization, and the Trilateral Commission, and Sigma Pi Phi, the oldest African American fraternity in the United States.