The Honorable William Ballard Hurd was elected to the Board of Trustees of
The Aerospace Corporation effective June 11, 2025.
Hurd, who served for three terms as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing Texas’ 23rd district, is currently the chief strategy officer at CHAOS Industries, a defense technology start-up that creates detection and monitoring solutions for defense and critical industries.
During his time in Congress, Hurd was a leading voice on matters of technology. In his first term, he was named Chair of the Information Technology Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which focuses in part on cybersecurity—considered a rare accomplishment for a first-term congressional member. He also served on the House Committee on Appropriations and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Hurd has addressed major issues facing the United States ranging from the proliferation of AI to increasing geopolitical tensions with China.
Prior to his political career, Hurd worked for nine years in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). His roles ranged from thwarting terror threats as an operations officer in various foreign countries to briefing members of Congress. After that, Hurd became a partner at Crumpton Group LLC, a strategic advisory company, and a senior advisor at FusionX, a cybersecurity firm. Following Congress, he joined private investment bank Allen & Company as a managing director where he focused on technology companies with a national security application.
Hurd is a member of the board of ICON Technology, Inc., a construction technology company; Personal AI, a software development platform; the Center for European Policy Analysis, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy institution; and the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent think tank. He is a past board member and trustee of the National Security Agency, the German Marshall Fund, and OpenAI Inc., a San Francisco-based AI company that focuses on developing safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence.
Hurd is the author of American Reboot: An Idealist’s Guide to Getting Big Things Done, a combination memoir and blueprint for the nation’s future.
Hurd earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Texas A&M University. He was a resident fellow at Harvard Kennedy School (Institute of Politics), and a Pritzker fellow at the University of Chicago (Institute of Politics).