Ambassador Carla A. Hills

Carla Hills is chair and CEO of Hills & Company. The firm provides advice to U.S. businesses on investment, trade, and risk assessment issues abroad, particularly in emerging market economies. Ambassador Hills served as U.S. trade representative (1989–1993) in the George H.W. Bush administration. During the Gerald R. Ford administration, she served as U.S. secretary of housing and urban development and as assistant attorney general, Civil Division, at the U.S. Department of Justice. Over the years, Ambassador Hills has served on a number of corporate boards and currently is a member of the board of Gilead Sciences. She also serves on a number of nonprofit boards, including as cochair of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the Inter-American Dialogue, as chair of the National Committee on United States–China Relations, and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and of the Trilateral Commission. She is cochair of the Advisory Board at CSIS, as well as a trustee of the Center. Before entering government, Ambassador Hills cofounded and was a partner in a Los Angeles, CA, law firm. She also served as an adjunct professor at the University of California at Los Angeles Law School teaching antitrust law and coauthored The Antitrust Adviser (McGraw-Hill, 1971). She received her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, her law degree from Yale University, and studied at Oxford University. She holds a number of honorary degrees, and she was awarded the Aztec Eagle in 2000, the highest honor given by the Mexican government to a noncitizen.