Speakers

Lieutenant General Charles Hooper, US Army (Ret.), joined The Cohen Group as a Senior Counselor in October 2020 after a 41‑year military career. He most recently served as Director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, overseeing U.S. weapons, equipment, support services and training sales to foreign governments—managing 20,000 personnel worldwide and more than $100 billion in annual sales while cultivating strong ties with allied partners.

Earlier assignments included Senior U.S. Defense Official/Defense Attaché and Chief of the Office of Military Cooperation at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Director of Strategy, Plans and Programs at U.S. Africa Command, and Deputy Director for Strategic Planning and Policy at U.S. Pacific Command. He completed two attaché tours in Beijing, served as U.S. Defense Attaché to China (as a brigadier general), and acted as Senior Country Director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, accumulating 16 years of security‑cooperation and diplomatic experience.

General Hooper is a West Point graduate and holds an MPA from Harvard University, where he delivered the graduate student address in 1989. He also graduated from the U.S. Army War College and the British Ministry of Defence Chinese Language School, speaking Mandarin fluently.

In addition to his work with The Cohen Group, he sits on the boards of General Dynamics, UL Solutions and Apache Corp., advises the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, serves on the Board of Trustees of the National WWII Museum, is a Senior Non‑Resident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.