Michèle Angélique Flournoy (, born December 14, 1960) is an American defense policy advisor and former government official. She was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy under President Bill Clinton and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under President Barack Obama. As Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Flournoy was the highest-ranking woman in the history of the Department of Defense. In that position, Flournoy crafted the Obama administration's counter-insurgency policy in Afghanistan and helped persuade President Obama to intervene militarily in Libya. In 2007, Flournoy co-founded the Center for a New American Security. She is a co-founder and the current managing partner of WestExec Advisors. Early life and education Flournoy was born on December 14, 1960, in Los Angeles, California. Her father, George Flournoy, was a cinematographer who worked on shows including I Love Lucy and The Odd Couple. He died of a heart attack when she was 14 years old. Flournoy attended Beverly Hills High School in Beverly Hills, California. She was an exchange student in Belgium for one year, where she learned French. Flournoy received a bachelor of arts degree in social studies from Harvard College in 1983. She received an M.Litt. in international relations in 1986 from Oxford University, where she was a Newton-Tatum scholar at Balliol College. As of 1986, she was a research analyst at the Center for Defense Information; by 1989, she worked at the Arms Control Association. From 1989 until 1993 she was at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she was a research fellow in its International Security Program. Career Clinton administration (1996-2000) Flournoy served in the Clinton administration in the United States Department of Defense, where she was both Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Threat Reduction and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy. Flournoy was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 1996, the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service in 1998 and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award in 2000. While serving under the Clinton administration as a deputy assistant secretary of defense, Flournoy was the principal author of the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, which argued that "determined U.S. forces must be capable of fighting and winning two major theater wars nearly simultaneously". She was a primary contributor to the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review. Public policy research Flournoy