Daniel B. Poneman is a distinguished fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center. He is also a distinguished fellow of the Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a member of its advisory council. Poneman is the former president and chief executive officer of Centrus Energy Corp., which he led from 2015 to 2023. Prior to joining Centrus Energy Corp., Poneman served as US deputy secretary of energy and as chief operating officer of the department from 2009 to 2014. Between April 2013 and May 2013, Poneman was the acting secretary of energy.

Before assuming his responsibilities as deputy secretary, Poneman served as a principal of The Scowcroft Group for eight years, and from 1993 through 1996, he served as special assistant to the president and senior director for nonproliferation and export controls at the National Security Council.

Poneman first joined the Department of Energy in 1989 as a White House fellow. In 1990, he joined the National Security Council staff as director of defense policy and arms control. Between tours of government service, Poneman practiced law for nine years in Washington, DC, as an associate at Covington & Burling and as a partner at Hogan & Hartson.

Poneman has published widely on national security issues. He is the author of Nuclear Power in the Developing World, Argentina: Democracy on Trial, and Double Jeopardy: Combating Nuclear Terror and Climate Change. His third book, Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (co-authored with Joel Wit and Robert Gallucci), received the 2005 Douglas Dillon Award for Distinguished Writing on American Diplomacy.

After leaving government, Poneman was a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is a distinguished fellow at the Paulson Institute and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Poneman received AB and JD degrees with honors from Harvard University and an MLitt in politics from Oxford University.