Until January 20, 2025, McDonough served as Secretary of the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), leading the Federal government’s second largest agency and its $370 billion annual budget and 450,000 employees.
With a reputation for working across party lines and logging long hours, McDonough led VA to annual increases in Veterans receiving health care and benefits, and increases in veteran satisfaction with health care in each of his four years of management. VA significantly expanded the number of homeless Veterans placed in permanent housing each of these four years, culminating with nearly 48,000 homeless veterans receiving permanent housing in Fiscal Year 2024.
From 2017 to January 2021, McDonough was Professor of the Practice at Notre Dame University’s Keough School of Global Affairs, a Partner at Macro Advisory Partners, a strategic advisory firm, and Senior Adviser at the Markle Foundation, promoting labor market reforms so all Americans can thrive in the digital economy.
From February 2013 to January 2017, McDonough served as White House Chief of Staff for President Barack Obama’s entire second term. McDonough managed the White House staff, Cabinet Secretaries and agency leaders. He advised the President on domestic policy and national security challenges, management issues facing the federal government, and devised and enforced plans and accountability for performance and goals, maintaining the Obama Administration’s reputation for effective, ethical operation. He planned and coordinated efforts to recruit and retain key talent, including an unprecedented increase in recruitment and retention of technology experts and engineers within the White House and across the federal government.
From September 2010 until February 2013, McDonough was Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy National Security Advisor in the Obama White House. He led multi-agency teams to address complex national security challenges, like the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, and national security policy execution and crisis management.
Before his eight-year tenure in the White House, McDonough served in senior leadership and policy-making positions in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.
McDonough received his B.A., summa cum laude, from St. John’s University (MN), where he was football team captain, and his M.S. from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. A Minnesotan, he now lives in Maryland with his wife and three children.
