Charles Hill, a career minister in the US Foreign Service, is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and cochair of the Working Group on Islamism and the International Order. He was executive aide to former US secretary of state George P. Shultz (1983–89) and served as special consultant on policy to the secretary-general of the United Nations (1992–96). He is the Brady-Johnson Distinguished Fellow in Grand Strategy at Yale University. His most recent book is Trial of a Thousand Years: World Order and Islamism (Hoover Institution Press, 2011).

Among Hill's awards are the Superior Honor Award from the Department of State in 1973 and 1981; the Presidential Distinguished Service Award in 1987 and 1989; and the Secretary of State's Medal in 1989. He was granted an honorary doctor of laws degree by Rowan University.