Chris Voss is a seasoned negotiator, teacher and leader. He has led negotiation teams across the globe, from Baghdad to Bogota to Boston.

The Black Swan Group was started in 2008 after Chris Voss graduated from Harvard Kennedy School of Government with his Masters in Public Administration. Chris decided to get his masters from Harvard after spending 26 years in the FBI, seven of which he was the Bureau’s lead international kidnapping negotiator.

While in the Bureau, Chis was trained in the art of negotiation by the FBI, Scotland Yard and Harvard Law School. Towards the end of his career Chris Voss decided that many of the concepts of hostage negotiation are readily applicable to the business world. The only real differences are the stakes.

Along with the book, “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” (Nassim Nicholas Taleb), and the idea that a true hybrid negotiator can combine hostage negotiation concepts with business, the name for The Black Swan Group was born.

Since starting The Black Swan Group, Chris has taught business negotiation at Harvard University, and has guest lectured at The Kellogg School of Business, The IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland and The Goethe School of Business in Frankfurt Germany. He is currently teaching business negotiation in the MBA program at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

As an example of our work, one of The Black Swan Group’s clients received a salary offer that was double what they were willing to accept.