Mark H. Chichester

Mark Howard Chichester is a principal in the Aegis Group and serves as the executive director of the Aegis Institute. Prior to the launch of Aegis, Mark was co-founder, president, and vice chair of the board of Atlas Research, an award-winning middle market federal healthcare innovation and transformation company founded in 2008 and acquired by Customer Value Partners, Inc. in 2021.  

Before co-founding of Atlas, Mark served as a vice president at The Aspen Institute and as executive director of Aspen's Socrates Program portfolio.  He was a member of the executive staff of former Congressman Bill Gray at UNCF, where he directed the Division of Policy Studies and Research and oversaw the Institute for International Public Policy and the Center for Assessment, Planning and Accountability.  Prior to his tenure at UNCF, he worked on the Policy Coordination Staff in the Office of the Director General at the U.S. Department of State and, before that, as a research associate in the government relations office of General Instrument Corporation. 

Among others, Mark has served on the boards of the National Education Association (NEA) Foundation (including a stint as chairman) and the Forum on Education Abroad, and he is currently a trustee of The George Washington University, where he serves on the Executive Committee.  In addition to his board service, he has been a member of the U.S. Army Chief of Staff's Eisenhower National Security Series Working Group; a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he co-chaired the Washington Term Member Advisory Committee; and an appointee to the U.S. Trade Representative's Trade Advisory Committee on Africa. 

Mark holds degrees in business and law from The George Washington University, where he received The George Washington Award, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Medal for Outstanding Contributions in Human Rights, the Baer Leadership Award, and was inducted into the George Washington Circle of the Omicron Delta Kappa national leadership honor society.  He held a Shapiro Fellowship in the Republic of Korea and was an Executive Seminarian of the Aspen Institute. 

Mark is a fourth-generation native of Washington, DC, where he attended Sidwell Friends School.