Cindy McCain

Cindy Lou Hensley was born in Phoenix, Arizona, to James Hensley, who founded Hensley & Co., and Marguerite "Smitty" Hensley (née Johnson). She was raised as the only child of each of her parents' second marriage and grew up on Phoenix's North Central Avenue in affluent circumstances. Dixie Lea Burd (d. 2008), the daughter of Marguerite Smith through a prior relationship, was her half-sister, as was Kathleen Hensley Portalski (d. 2017), the daughter of Jim Hensley and his first wife, Mary Jeanne Parks. Cindy Hensley was named Junior Rodeo Queen of Arizona in 1968. She attended Central High School in Phoenix, graduating in 1972.

Hensley enrolled at the University of Southern California. She joined Kappa Alpha Theta sorority as a freshman, and had many leadership roles in the house during her four years there. Hensley graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in education in 1976. She continued on at USC, and received a Master of Arts degree in special education in 1978. There she participated in a movement therapy pilot program that led the way to a standard treatment for children with severe disabilities; she published the work Movement Therapy: A Possible Approach in 1978. Declining a role in the family business, she worked for a year as a special education teacher of children with Down syndrome and other disabilities at Agua Fria High School in Avondale, Arizona.

Cindy McCain was appointed on March 2, 2023, as the new Executive Director of the U.N. World Food Programme by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Qu Dongyu. McCain succeeded David Beasley, who had served six years as executive director when his term ended on April 4, 2023.

On October 22, 2023, McCain warned that the 2023 Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip could cause a humanitarian catastrophe. As the food insecurity crisis in the Gaza Strip worsened towards the end of 2023, many staff members at the World Food Programme expressed unhappiness with McCain for not having used her position to more forcefully argue on behalf of Palestinian civilians. Following the deadly World Central Kitchen aid convoy attack by Israel in May 2024, McCain said she was "shocked" and "heartbroken", that aid workers needed unfettered access to areas within Gaza, and that "This attack on our humanitarian community is unacceptable." In a May 2024 appearance on Meet the Press, McCain said that from what her organization was observing on the ground, there was a "full-blown famine" in parts of Gaza.

Nonetheless, McCain said that other areas of the world were also focal points of her attention, especially acute food insecurities in Sudan as well as in other parts of Africa and in Haiti.

The Gaza war continued, and with the collapse of the January 2025 Gaza war ceasefire in March of that year, Israel imposed a total blockade including the disallowing of any humanitarian aid. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification for Gaza was raised to level 5, the highest on its scale, and in early May, McCain said that "It's imperative that the international community acts urgently to get aid flowing into Gaza again. If we wait until after a famine is confirmed, it will already be too late for many people." During a visit to Rome that month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with McCain and she outlined to him how their deliveries would work were the blockade to be eased. International pressure became strong enough to induce Israel to start allowing some aid through. However, McCain said in late May that only one-sixth of the cease-fire-period amount of aid was being allowed in and that it was "a drop in the bucket."

Meanwhile, the foreign aid slashings of DOGE and the rest of the 47th presidency resulted in donations to the World Food Programme by the United States. Other nations did not fill the void, and the budget crisis and resultant service reductions at the organization continued into 2026.

In October 2025, McCain went on leave from the World Food Programme after suffering a mild stroke. Following several weeks of recuperation, she returned to the role in early January 2026. However, in February 2026 she announced with regret that, due to her health, she would be stepping down from the position. Her departure date was expected to be around May 2026. She called the role "the honor of a lifetime" and received praise for her efforts from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

Hensley met John McCain in April 1979 at a military reception in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was the U.S. Navy liaison officer to the United States Senate, and was accompanying a group of senators heading for China. She was in Hawaii on a family vacation with her parents. Hensley was talking to Jill Biden, the wife of Senator Joe Biden, who suggested that she talk to McCain; her father made the introduction. He was almost 18 years her senior; by her later description, each fudged the age they said they were to the other: "He made himself younger, and I made myself older, of course."

He had been married to Carol McCain for 14 years and they had three children (two of whom he adopted from her first marriage).

McCain and Hensley quickly began a relationship, traveling between Arizona and Washington to see each other. John McCain then pushed to end his marriage and the couple stopped cohabiting in January 1980, Carol McCain consented to a divorce in February 1980, it was finalized in April 1980.

Hensley and McCain were married on May 17, 1980, at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix. They signed a prenuptial agreement that kept most of her family's assets under her name; they kept their finances apart and filed separate income tax returns.

Her father's business and political contacts helped her new husband to gain a foothold in Arizona politics. She campaigned with her husband door to door during his successful first bid for U.S. Congress in 1982, and was heavily involved in campaign strategy. Her wealth from an expired trust from her parents provided significant loans to the campaign and helped it survive a period of early debt.

Once her husband was elected, the McCains moved to Alexandria, Virginia. She spent two months in late 1983 writing handwritten notes on over 4,000 Christmas cards to be sent to constituents and others. She was considered an outsider who was snubbed by the Washington congressional social scene, in part because Carol McCain was a popular figure in town, and she grew homesick for Arizona. She had several miscarriages.

She moved back to Arizona in early 1984 and gave birth to the couple's daughter Meghan later that year. She subsequently gave birth to sons John Sidney IV (known as "Jack") in 1986 and James (known as "Jimmy") in 1988. Their fourth child, Bridget, was adopted in 1991. McCain's parents lived across the street and helped her raise the children; her husband was frequently in Washington and she typically only saw him on weekends and holidays. In his absence, she organized elaborate fund-raisers for him and expanded their home.

In April 1986, McCain and her father invested $359,100 in a shopping center project with Phoenix banker Charles Keating. This, combined with her role as a bookkeeper who later had difficulty finding receipts for family trips on Keating's jet, caused complications for her husband during the Keating Five scandal, when he was being examined for his role regarding oversight of Keating's bank.