Denis McDonough

Denis Richard McDonough (born December 2, 1969) was the 26th White House Chief of Staff, succeeding Jack Lew at the start of President Barack Obama's second term.

McDonough was born on December 2, 1969, in Stillwater, Minnesota. He is one of eleven children of Kathleen Marie (O'Mahony) and William Joseph McDonough. He was raised in a devout Catholic family.

McDonough attended Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, where he played safety on the Johnnies football team for Hall of Fame coach John Gagliardi. McDonough was a member of teams that won two conference titles in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. McDonough graduated from Saint John's University with a B.A. summa cum laude in history and Spanish in 1992. After graduation, McDonough traveled extensively throughout Latin America and taught high school in Belize.

He graduated from Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service with an MSFS degree in 1996.

From 1996 to 1999, McDonough worked as an aide to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he focused on Latin America. McDonough then served as a senior foreign policy advisor to Senator Tom Daschle. After Daschle's re-election defeat in 2004, McDonough became legislative director for newly elected Senator Ken Salazar. McDonough later served as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in 2004.

In 2007, Senator Barack Obama's chief foreign policy advisor, Navy reservist Mark Lippert, was called into active duty and recruited McDonough to serve as his replacement during Lippert's deployment to Iraq. McDonough continued to serve as a senior foreign policy advisor to Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign.

After President Obama's election, he joined the administration as the National Security Council's head of Strategic Communication. He also served as National Security Council Chief of Staff.

McDonough, seated, third from right in blue shirt, in the Situation Room during the Bin Laden raid.

On October 20, 2010, President Barack Obama announced that McDonough would be replacing Thomas E. Donilon as Deputy National Security Advisor, who had been promoted to succeed General James L. Jones as National Security Advisor. McDonough was seen in photos of the White House Situation Room taken during the monitoring of the SEAL operation in Pakistan that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

On January 20, 2013, at the beginning of his second term in office, Obama appointed McDonough as his Chief of Staff. In February 2013 McDonough urged lawmakers to quickly confirm Chuck Hagel and John O. Brennan to their posts in Obama's national security team, expressing "grave concern" about the delays.

As Chief of Staff, the former Congressional staffer made greater outreach to Republican Senators a major priority, with one Republican referring to his tenure as Chief of Staff as "a breath of fresh air".