Yesterday (January 15) the Atlantic Council of the United States (ACUS) named Jon Huntsman as the new Chairman of its Board of Directors. His appointment takes effect immediately, according to a press release.
Huntsman served as governor of Utah and as President Obama's Ambassador to China. He was a Republican presidential candidate in 2012 but dropped out of the running and endorsed Mitt Romney.
Huntsman succeeds Chuck Hagel, who stepped down from the think tank position to become Secretary of Defense. Since then, Brent Scowcroft has been serving as Atlantic Council's Interim Chairman.
Although Huntsman is the new Chairman, Scowcroft will remain as Chairman of the think tank's International Advisory Board.
The search for the chairmanship post was conducted by Korn Ferry, the world's largest executive search firm.
Think tanks are nothing new to Huntsman. As Think Tank Watch previously reported, Huntsman joined the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank, in June 2012 as a Distinguished Fellow.
Huntsman was also the Founding Director of the Pacific Council on International Policy,
which was founded in 1995 in partnership with the Council on Foreign
Relations (CFR). He has also served on boards such as the Center for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Pacific Forum, Asia Society
in New York, National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), and the Brookings
Institution's Asia Policy Board.
ACUS was recently ranked as the 17th best think tank in the US by the annual University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings.
