The Honorable Tommy Sowers, Ph.D., is a multi-sector leader who has operated at the highest levels of the military, government, academic, corporate, entrepreneurial, and nonprofit worlds. He currently serves as Deputy Director and Director of Graduate Studies at the Duke Initiative for Science & Society, and as Faculty Lead for Applied Technology Ethics.
A 1998 Duke graduate (A.B. in Public Policy, cum laude), Sowers earned his MSc and PhD from the London School of Economics as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. His dissertation examined mid-level officer autonomy in the U.S. and British armies in Iraq.
Sowers served 11 years in the U.S. Army, achieving the rank of Major. After leading a combat engineering platoon during NATO operations in Kosovo, he graduated first in his class at the Special Forces Qualification Course in 2004. As a Green Beret with the 10th Special Forces Group, he deployed twice to Iraq, commanding a twelve-man A-team responsible for training an Iraqi SWAT unit near Tikrit. His decorations include two Bronze Stars, the Combat Infantryman Badge, Senior Parachutist Badge, Military Freefall Badge, Ranger Tab, Special Forces Tab, and Belgian Commando School Brevet.
After teaching at West Point and running for Congress in Missouri's 8th District, Sowers was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Veterans Affairs — at the time, the youngest Senate-confirmed Assistant Secretary in the administration.
In the private sector, Sowers co-founded GoldenKey, a venture-backed real estate technology company named by Fortune as a top startup to watch, which was acquired by Landis in 2018. He later served as President of flyExclusive, the nation's fourth-largest private jet charter operator, helping lead the company through its 2023 IPO with over 100 jets, 700 employees, and $250M+ in annual revenue.
Sowers currently serves on the North Carolina AI Leadership Council established by Governor Josh Stein. He is co-founder and producer of The Lincoln Awards: A Concert for Veterans & the Military Family, and has served on the national board of Americans for the Arts. His writing has appeared in Fast Company and HuffPost, and he has spoken at TED Global, the Aspen Security Forum, and the Clinton Global Initiative.
