Rudolph William Giuliani was born on May 28, 1944, in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, as an only child in a Roman Catholic family. Mr. Giuliani attended Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, majored in political science and philosophy at Manhattan College, and attended New York University Law School, graduating magna cum laude in 1968.

A clerkship at the office of New York Federal District Court Judge Lloyd F. McMahon led to a job as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York. Mr. Giuliani was named Chief of the Narcotics Unit and promoted to the position of Executive U.S. Attorney. In 1975, Mr. Giuliani moved to Washington, D.C., to work as the Associate Deputy Attorney General and chief of staff for Deputy Attorney General Harold R. Tyler. He returned to New York in 1976 and became a partner in the law firm of Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler.

After practicing law for four years, Mr. Giuliani was named Associate Attorney General in the new administration of President Ronald Reagan in 1981. As the third-highest-ranking member of the Department of Justice, Mr. Giuliani oversaw all the U.S. attorneys' federal law enforcement agencies, as well as the Bureau of Corrections, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and the U.S. Marshals. In 1983, Mr. Giuliani returned to Manhattan to work as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. In his six years in the office, Mr. Giuliani amassed an impressive record of 4,152 convictions.

Mr. Giuliani entered the race for mayor of New York City in 1989 and lost by a close margin to his Democratic rival David N. Dinkins. Four years later, Mr. Giuliani ran again, this time winning the election over David Dinkins to become New York's first Republican mayor in over 20 years. During his two terms in office, New York City's crime rate fell by 57%, leading the FBI to characterize New York as America's safest large city. In addition to its crackdown on crime, the Giuliani administration initiated the country's largest workfare program, which cut welfare rolls in half, while moving over 640,000 individuals from dependence on the government to the dignity of self-sufficiency.

After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Mr. Giuliani's commanding leadership earned him the admiration and respect of the international community and especially of the grief-stricken residents of New York City. Today, Mr. Giuliani is the President of Giuliani Partners, a New York-based consulting firm which helps private entities improve their security, preparedness, and crisis-management capabilities.