US President-elect Joe Biden on Monday named retired veteran diplomat William Burns as his pick to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. Burns helped lead secret talks with Iran.

“Bill Burns is an exemplary diplomat with decades of experience on the world stage keeping our people and our country safe and secure,” Biden said in a statement released by his transition team.

Burns holds a masters and doctoral degrees from Oxford University. He spent over three decades in the US foreign service. The most prominent of his stints were in Russia from 2008-2008 and as the US ambassador to Oman from 1998-2001.

He retired from the foreign service in 2014 and is currently the head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an international affairs think tank in the United States.