Ambassador Kathleen Doherty (Ret.)

Ambassador Kathleen Doherty (Ret.) joined The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands’ senior leadership team in February 2020 as Chief Strategy and Retreats Officer.

She came to Sunnylands after a distinguished career with the U.S. Department of State, leaving the agency as a dean of the Foreign Service Institute, the State Department’s premier training facility for U.S. diplomats.  From September 2015 to February 2019, she was the U.S. Ambassador to Cyprus. Kathleen also served in senior leadership positions in the U.S. embassies in Rome, Moscow, and London, and in the Department of State in Washington, DC.  She started her diplomatic career in Brazil and the Dominican Republic. As a diplomat, Kathleen promoted democratic and economic reform and the empowerment of women and youth; built strategic partnerships; negotiated international agreements and led teams in times of major change.  When serving as a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe, she received one of the State Department’s highest awards for her work on relations between the United States and the European Union.

She has a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Kathleen speaks nearly fluent Italian, and some Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian.