Prof. Alex Mintz was appointed Provost and took office on October 1st. Between the years 2013-2016 Prof. Mintz directed the Institute for Policy and Strategy (IPS) at IDC Herzliya and chaired the Herzliya Conference series. Prior to this position, Prof. Mintz served as Dean of the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy for seven years. Prof. Mintz also founded the Master degree program in government and leads the Program in Political Psychology and Decision Making (POPDM) at IDC Herzliya.

Prof. Mintz is the 2005 recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award of the Foreign Policy Analysis section of the International Studies Association (ISA) for distinguished contributions to the field and is also the Chairman of the Israeli Political Science Association. In addition, he served as co-chairman of the steering committee for the "Israeli Hope - Towards a New Israeli Order", with the blessing of the President of Israel.

His book, The Polythink Syndrome: U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions on 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria and ISIS, was recently published by Stanford University Press.