Chris Voss was the lead international kidnapping negotiator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He served as the FBI’s hostage negotiation representative for the National Security Council’s Hostage Working Group and was a key member of the New York City Joint Terrorist Task Force for 14 years.
Before becoming the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator, Voss served as the lead Crisis Negotiator for the New York City division of the FBI. Voss was a member of the New York City Joint Terrorist Task Force for 14 years. Voss handled critical cases including the TERRSTOP investigation of Omar Abdel-Rahman (“The Blind Sheikh”), the TWA Flight 800 catastrophe, and negotiated the surrender of the first hostage taker in the Chase Manhattan Bank robbery.
Trained by the FBI, Scotland Yard, and Harvard Law School, Voss is a recipient of both the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement and the FBI Agents Association Award for Distinguished and Exemplary Service. Voss retired from the FBI in 2007 after working as a negotiator on more than 150 international hostage cases.
Voss 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.
Voss is co-author of the bestselling book Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It. In the book, Voss takes the principles and tactics he used as an FBI negotiator and adapts them for practical use in business and everyday life. Voss has been featured in several publications including TIME, Business Insider, Entrepreneur, Inc., Fast Company, Fortune, and The Washington Post.
