Cindy Hensley McCain

As World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director, Cindy Hensley McCain brings to the role a broad range of expertise and a deep commitment to ending hunger and malnutrition. A distinguished humanitarian, business leader and diplomat with a career spanning four decades, McCain has championed a wide range of causes focused on alleviating poverty and promoting sustainable development and peace. As Executive Director, she is capitalizing on her broad experience to lead the organization’s response to the global food crisis and spearheading the effort to mobilize support from long-standing donors while also forging ambitious new partnerships to sustain WFP’s life-saving mission.

Before joining WFP, McCain served as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the United States Mission to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Agencies in Rome. The wife of the late U.S. Senator John McCain, she is known for her extensive philanthropic work and advocacy on various issues such as human trafficking, children's health care, and education.

McCain is the former Chair of the Board of Trustees of the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University, where she oversaw the organization’s focus on advancing character-driven global leadership. She has also served on the Board of Directors of Project C.U.R.E, CARE, Operation Smile, Halo Trust, and the Advisory Boards of Too Small To Fail and Warriors and Quiet Waters. She was the Chairman of her family’s business, Hensley Beverage Company, one of the largest Anheuser-Busch beer distributors in the country.

McCain holds an undergraduate degree in education and a master’s degree in special education from the University of Southern California.