Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) is an honorary co-chair of ITIF.
Senator Chris Coons represents Delaware in the United States Senate, where he serves on the Senate Committees on Appropriations, Judiciary, Foreign Relations, and Small Business and Entrepreneurship. He is particularly interested in nurturing American innovation and making the United States more competitive in the global market.
In the decade before he was elected to Senate, Senator Coons served in the New Castle County government as New Castle County President and New Castle County Executive. Prior to his work for the county, he was an attorney for W.L. Gore & Associates. Senator Coons earned a B.A. in Chemistry and Political Science from Amherst College before earning a law degree from Yale Law School and a Master’s in Ethics from Yale Divinity School. He also studied at the University of Nairobi in Kenya.
Senator Coons lives in Wilmington, Delaware, with his wife Annie and their three children: Michael, Jack, and Maggie.