Christopher Voss is an American businessman, author, and academic. Voss is a former FBI hostage negotiator , the CEO of The Black Swan Group Ltd, a company registered in East Grinstead, England, and co-author of the book ''Never Split the Difference''. He is an adjunct Professor at

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

McDonough School of Business The Robert Emmett McDonough School of Business, commonly shorted to the McDonough School of Business and abbreviated as the MSB, is the business school of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1957, it grants both undergraduate and ...

, and a lecturer at the Marshall School of Business at

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

Early life and education

Voss was born in

Mt. Pleasant, Iowa Mount Pleasant is a city in and the county seat of Henry County, Iowa. The population was 9,274 in the 2020 census, an increase from 8,668 in the 2010 census. It was founded in 1835 by pioneer Presley Saunders. History The first permanent s ...

. He earned a Bachelor of Science from

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

and

Master of Public Administration The Master of Public Administration (M.P.Adm., M.P.A., or MPA) is a specialized higher professional post graduate degree in public administration, similar/ equivalent to the Master of Business Administration but with an emphasis on the issues of ...

from the

John F. Kennedy School of Government The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...

Career

Voss was a member of the New York City Joint Terrorism Task Force from 1986 to 2000. He was involved in monitoring the New York City landmark bomb plot after spending three years investigating the

1993 World Trade Center bombing The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, U.S., carried out on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the complex. The urea nitrate–hydrogen gas en ...

, one of 500 agents who were involved in the task. He was the "co-case agent" during the investigation of the 1996

TWA Flight 800 Trans World Airlines Flight 800 (TWA800) was a Boeing 747-100 that exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, on July 17, 1996, at about 8:31pm. Eastern Daylight Time, EDT, 12 minutes after takeoff from John F. K ...

explosion. In 1992, he received hostage negotiation training at the

FBI Academy The FBI Academy is the Federal Bureau of Investigation's law enforcement training and research center near the town of Quantico in Stafford County, Virginia. Operated by the bureau's Training Division, it was first opened for use on May 7, 197 ...

. He spent 24 years working in the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit and was the FBI's chief international hostage and kidnapping negotiator from 2003 to 2007. In 2006, he was the lead negotiator on the

Jill Carroll Jill Carroll (born October 6, 1977) is an American former journalist who worked for news organizations such as ''The Wall Street Journal'', MSNBC, and the ''Christian Science Monitor''. On January 7, 2006 while working for the ''Monitor'', she wa ...

case in Iraq as well as the

Steve Centanni Steven James "Steve" Centanni is an American former news reporter for Fox News Channel. Journalism career Centanni joined FNC in 1996. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, he served as an embedded journalist with the Navy SEALs and provided numer ...

case in the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...

. Voss supervised additional hostage cases in the Philippines, Colombia and Haiti. After working on more than 150 international hostage cases, he retired from the FBI in 2007 and founded The Black Swan Group. The Black Swan Group serves as a consultancy and trainer for both businesses and individuals on negotiation skills. He became an adjunct professor at

and a lecturer at the USC Marshall School of Business. In 2016, Voss co-authored the book ''Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It'', with journalist Tahl Raz. Voss was given the

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

's Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement as well as the FBI Agents Association Award for Distinguished and Exemplary Service. Voss is a regular commentator on

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...

, and

Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...

, and NPR. He has also been featured in ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''Inc.'', ''Variety'', and ''Time''. In 2019, he created and narrated a MasterClass, The Art of Negotiation.

Books

* ''Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It'' (2016)

References

External links

Inc magazine, "The 5 Brilliant Emotional Intelligence Tactics This FBI Agent Uses to Negotiate"

Time magazine, "5 Tactics to Win a Negotiation, According to an FBI Agent"

IDC Magazine

{{DEFAULTSORT:Voss, Christopher Living people American chief executives American writers Federal Bureau of Investigation agents McDonough School of Business faculty Harvard Kennedy School alumni Negotiation United States National Security Council staffers University of Southern California faculty 1957 births