Ambassador David J. Lane (Ret.)

Ambassador David J. Lane is President of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, a post he has held since September 2016. Over the course of his career, he has been a leader in both non-profit and governmental sectors, including serving as U.S. Representative to the United Nations Agencies in Rome from May 2012 until August 2016.

From 2007 until 2011, Amb. Lane served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the ONE Campaign, a global advocacy organization focused on extreme poverty, especially issues of global health, economic development, and effective governance. Before that, from 2001 until 2007, he founded and managed the East Coast office of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As director of foundation advocacy, he shaped and executed the Gates Foundation’s strategy and approach to advocacy in areas such as global health, poverty alleviation, and education reform.

Amb. Lane served in the Obama administration as assistant to the president and counselor to the White House chief of staff prior to his service in Rome. As the U.S. Representative, he promoted policy reforms in the areas of food security, agricultural development, poverty alleviation, development finance, and rule of law promotion.

In the 1990s, Amb. Lane held several appointments in the Clinton administration, including Executive Director of the White House National Economic Council and Chief of Staff to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

A native of Florida, Amb. Lane earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia in political and social thought and a Master of Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.