down in February 2012 to return to private life and contribute to President Barack Obama's re-election bid. Libya In 2011, Flournoy, then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, helped persuade President Obama to intervene militarily in Libya, despite opposition from members of Congress and key White House advisors, such as Joe Biden, Vice President; Tom Donilon, National Security Advisor; and Robert Gates, Defense Secretary. Flournoy supported the NATO-led imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya to oust resistant leader Muammar Gaddafi, accused of ordering the killing of demonstrators and promising to "hunt the rebels down and show no mercy." Flournoy said imposition of a no-fly zone necessitated first destroying Libya's air defenses with US and British cruise missiles targeting the Libyan missile defense system, and US B-2 bombers attacking Libyan airfields. Rainmaker and think-tanker (2012-present) After leaving the Obama administration, Flournoy joined Boston Consulting Group as a senior advisor to its Washington D.C.-based public sector practice. It was reported that under Flournoy's direction the Boston Consulting Group's military contracts went "from $1.6 million in 2013 to $32 million in 2016". In a 2013 conversation with the Council on Foreign Relations, Flournoy said she had supported US military intervention on humanitarian grounds. Critics who disagreed with Flournoy described the war on Libya as "disastrous" in its destabilization of entire regions in the Middle East and North Africa, facilitating the transfer of arms to extremists across countries. Two years after the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi, Flournoy defended the US military intervention in Libya, telling the Council on Foreign Relations: "I think we were right to do it." As well as bring for a time a member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and a member of the CIA Director’s External Advisory Board, Flournoy was, in 2014, a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. At least in 2014 Flournoy sat on the board of the Atlantic Council. Hypothetical role in Clinton administration (2016) In June 2016 while she was rumoured to be "Hillary Clinton's Likely Defense Secretary", Flournoy advocated regime change in Syria, supporting "limited military coercion" to remove President Bashar al-Assad from office. Co-founder WestExec Advisors (2017) Flournoy co-founded WestExec Advisors where she holds the post of managing partner. In 2017, Flournoy, along with Antony Blinken, US Deputy Secretary of State in the Obama administration, co-founded WestExec Advisors, a consulting firm. As corporate director In 2018, Flournoy