In 2023, VentureWave Capital honored Senator George Mitchell with the Impact Ireland Award, celebrating his extraordinary dedication to peacebuilding and conflict resolution.
Senator Mitchell received an undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College and a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center. He served in Berlin as an officer in the US Army Counter-Intelligence Corps from 1954 to 1956. He entered the United States Senate in 1980 & went on to an illustrious career in the Senate spanning 15 years. He left the Senate in 1995 as the Senate majority leader, a position he had held since January 1989. Senator Mitchell enjoyed bipartisan respect during his tenure. For six consecutive years, he was voted “the most respected member” of the Senate by a bipartisan group of senior congressional aides.
In 1995, he served as a Special Advisor to President Clinton on Ireland, and from 1996 to 2000, he served as the Independent Chairman of the Northern Ireland Peace Talks. Under his leadership, the Good Friday Agreement was agreed to by the Governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom and the political parties of Northern Ireland. For his service in Northern Ireland, Senator Mitchell received numerous awards and honours, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour given by the US government, and the United Nations (UNESCO) Peace Prize. In 2000 and 2001, at the request of President Clinton, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Chairman Yasser Arafat, Senator Mitchell served as Chairman of an International Fact-Finding Committee on violence in the Middle East. The Committee’s recommendation, widely known as The Mitchell Report, was endorsed by the Bush Administration, the European Union and many other governments.
In 2006 and 2007, he led the investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball. He also served as Chairman of the Special Commission Investigating Allegations of Impropriety in the Olympic Games bidding process and as the Independent Overseer of the American Red Cross Liberty Fund, which provided relief for September 11 attack victims and their families.
Senator Mitchell served as Chairman of the global board of the law firm DLA Piper, Chairman of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company, member of the board of the Boston Red Sox, and director of several companies, including Federal Express, Xerox, Staples, Unilever, and Starwood Hotels and Resorts. He also served ten years as the Chancellor of Queen’s University of Northern Ireland.
