Chris Voss, Former FBI Hostage Negotiator, Author

Today, my guest is Chris Voss, Founder & CEO of The Black Swan Group, Former FBI Hostage Negotiator, and Best-Selling Author of Never Split the Difference. Chris used his many years of experience in international crises and high-stakes negotiations to develop a unique negotiation training program (The Black Swan Method^®) which has since grown into a holistic set of tactics and approaches that apply globally-proven negotiation techniques to the world of business.

Prior to 2008, Chris was the lead international kidnapping negotiator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as well as the FBI’s hostage negotiation representative for the National Security Council’s Hostage Working Group. During Chris’s 24-year tenure with the Bureau, he was trained in the art of negotiation by not only the FBI, but also Scotland Yard and Harvard Law School.

Chris is also a recipient of the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement and the FBI Agents Association Award for Distinguished and Exemplary Service. Chris has taught business negotiation in MBA programs as an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, and at Georgetown University McDonough School of Business. He also taught business negotiation at Harvard University and guest lectured at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, and the Goethe Business School in Frankfurt, Germany.