ADM (ret) Lisa Franchetti served as the 33rd Chief of Naval Operations, retiring in March 2025 after nearly 40 years of dedicated service to the Navy and the Nation. As the Navy’s senior military officer and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Franchetti advised the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on national security matters, ensuring the Navy’s over 600,000 Sailors and Civilians were ready to execute our Nation’s missions in peace, crisis, and war.
Commissioned through the Northwestern University NROTC program in 1985, Franchetti commanded at every level, including USS Ross, Destroyer Squadron 21, U.S. Naval Forces in Korea, two Aircraft Carrier Strike Groups, U.S. SIXTH Fleet, and Striking and Support Forces NATO. Ashore, as a Flag Officer she served as the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Force Development, the Director, Strategy, Plans and Policy on the Joint Staff (J-5), and the 42nd Vice Chief of Naval Operations.
She currently serves as an Independent Board Director at Cincinnati Financial Corporation, a Strategic Advisor to Lockheed-Martin Rotary Mission Systems, ServiceNow, Defense Unicorns, and Corridian, a consultant for Kearney, and was a Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute for Politics in Spring 2026. She will be a Distinguished Visiting Practitioner at the Roberta Buffet Institute of Global Affairs at Northwestern University in Spring 2027.
Franchetti holds a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Northwestern University and a Master’s Degree in Organizational Management from the University of Phoenix. She completed the Harvard Kennedy School’s National and International Security Program and was an MIT Seminar XXI Fellow. She is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, was awarded the Northwestern Alumni Medal in 2019, received the Naval War College Distinguished Graduate Award in 2024, was inducted into the Medill School of Journalism Hall of Achievement in 2024, and was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Northwestern University in 2025.
