Amos Hochstein

Amos J. Hochstein (born January 4, 1973) is an Israeli-American businessman, diplomat, and former lobbyist.

Currently the Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Adviser for Energy and Investment under U.S. President Joe Biden, he has worked in the U.S. Congress, has testified before congressional panels and has served in the Barack Obama administration under Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry.

He began working as a foreign policy adviser to Democratic Party members of the U.S. government House Foreign Affairs Committee from 1994 to January 2001.

He identifies as a Modern Orthodox Jew.

He is married to Julie Rae Ringel; they have four children together and live in Washington D.C. His wife works for the Georgetown University Continuing Education School in the executive leadership coaching program.

A dual U.S.-Israeli national, Hochstein served in the Israeli Defense Forces as a tank crewman.

On Capitol Hill, Hochstein first served on the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs staff.

In subsequent years he served in a variety of senior level positions, including the House International Relations Committee, where he served as Senior Policy Advisor.

In 1997, he later was sent to North Korea to report on the country's economic and military status as well as the progress and opportunities for humanitarian relief efforts.

Later, Hochstein served as the Senior Policy Advisor to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Hochstein first served as the principal Democratic staff person on the Economic Policy, Trade & Environment Subcommittee where he oversaw work authorizing Ex-Im Bank, OPIC and USTDA, as well as drafting legislation on export controls and trade-related multilateral organizations and regimes.

Hochstein also worked as a Senior Policy Advisor to then-Governor Mark Warner, and later as Policy Director for Senator Chris Dodd.

Eventually Hochstein resigned from the lobbying account but continued to work for Cassidy until 2006.

He joined Dodd's team in the beginning of 2007 and was the Policy Director during his 2008 Presidential campaign.

Hochstein was also an aide to Representative Sam Gejdenson.

During his time on Capitol Hill, Hochstein travelled to Iraq and was involved in U.S. back-channel diplomatic discussions to potentially lift U.S. economic sanctions in exchange for the potential resettlement of several thousand Palestinian refugees in Central Iraq.

Hochstein argued that the economic sanctions had to be maintained while conceding that it was necessary to "humanise" those sanctions.

Hochstein later moved to the private sector as Executive Vice President of International Operations at Cassidy & Associates.

Throughout his career, he was a counselor and lobbyist for both domestic and international oil and gas companies, as well as companies focusing on renewable energy.

In this capacity, he assisted corporations in assessing potential new markets and the development of alternative sources of power.

While working at Cassidy & Associates, Hochstein also worked on the account of the President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Africa's longest serving dictator, to improve the relationship with the United States.

In his book "Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power", two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Coll recounts, that while Hochstein initially was uncomfortable with the Equatorial Guinea account, he assisted in the development of a "road map" of political changes together with the U.S. National Security Council, that Equatorial Guinea would have to implement in order to display their political sincerity to change and to improve relations with the United States.

The outlines involved prisoner releases, substantial public investments in health care and education and Hochstein coordinated the communication of these points with and between Equatorial Guinea's leadership and the State Department.

Hochstein and others, among them Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz, said they were convinced by Obiang's will to change and adapt.

Equatorial Guinea under the Obiang regime remains by many accounts one of the world's least free countries.

Hochstein defended the Obiang regime in an interview with the Washington Post.

He stated that the development and support of the democratic process in countries like Equatorial Guinea must be supported and that Western states cannot expect changes of long-standing political realities overnight.

He was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in 2011 and as Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs in 2013.

He served in the administration from 2011 to 2017.

Hochstein began working at the U.S. Department of State in 2011, joining the newly formed Bureau of Energy Resources.

Serving as deputy to Special Envoy Carlos Pascual, Hochstein worked to help Ukraine find new supplies of natural gas in the wake of the 2014 Russian invasion.

He oversaw the Office of Middle East, Asia and Europe, the Western Hemisphere and Africa.

In 2015, President Barack Obama nominated Hochstein to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources but the Senate did not act on the nomination.

While at the State Department, Hochstein worked as a close advisor to Vice-President Biden.

In March 2017, he joined Tellurian, a private Houston-based LNG company, where he served as Senior Vice President Marketing until his departure in September 2020.

He serves on the boards of the Atlantic Council and U.S.-India Business Council.

Hochstein is a former member of the supervisory board of Ukrainian Naftogaz, from which he resigned in October 2020 by writing an opinion piece that highlighted the return of sabotage in the form of corrupt forces.

On August 10, 2021, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that he is appointing Hochstein as the Senior Advisor for Energy Security, and he was subsequently appointed Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security.

He currently also leads Biden's Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment.

Hochstein was born in Israel, the child of American Jewish immigrants.