Daniel Poneman

Daniel Bruce Poneman (born March 12, 1956) is an American business executive and former government official. He served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Centrus Energy, a publicly traded energy company, (LEU) from 2015 to 2023. Prior to joining Centrus Energy, he served as United States Deputy Secretary of Energy from 2009 to 2014. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago and a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. Poneman was Acting Secretary of Energy in 2013 following the resignation of Steven Chu until Ernest Moniz was confirmed and sworn in.

Education
Poneman received A.B. and J.D. degrees with honors from Harvard University, and an M.Litt. in politics from Oxford University, where he was a student at Lincoln College.

Career
Prior to serving as chief executive position at Centrus Energy, Poneman was nominated by President Barack Obama to be United States Deputy Secretary of Energy on April 20, 2009, and was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 18, 2009. He also served as Chief Operating Officer of the Department of Energy. Poneman served as Acting Secretary of Energy following the resignation of Secretary Chu until his successor, Ernest Moniz was confirmed by the Senate and was sworn in.

Poneman was a principal of The Scowcroft Group, a consulting firm in Washington, D.C., in the eight years prior to his appointment to the United States Department of Energy. Before his consulting role, Poneman was a partner in the law firm of Hogan & Hartson. Between 1993 and 1996, Poneman served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Nonproliferation and Export Controls at the National Security Council. He joined the NSC staff in 1990 as the Director of Defense Policy and Arms Control after also serving as a White House Fellow in the United States Department of Energy.

Poneman currently sits on the Atlantic Council's Board of Directors.

Publications
Poneman has published widely on national security issues and is the author of Nuclear Power in the Developing World and Argentina: Democracy on Trial. His third book, Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (coauthored with Joel Wit and Robert Gallucci), received the 2005 Douglas Dillon Award for Distinguished Writing on American Diplomacy. Poneman is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations.

Honors

 * JPN Kyokujitsu-sho 2Class BAR.svg Order of the Rising Sun, 2nd Class, Gold and Silver Star (2020)