Professional Affiliation

Ambassador to Romania (2001-04)

Expert Bio

Michael Guest is an independent consultant, offering strategic advice to corporate clients and civil society organizations. Before 2008, Ambassador Guest served for 26 years as a career Foreign Service Officer in the US Department of State. That career embraced service as Ambassador to Romania (2001-04); Deputy Chief of Mission in the Czech Republic; and on two US negotiating teams (German unification, US-Soviet strategic arms). His executive-level duties at the State Department included Dean of the Leadership and Management School; Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs; Deputy Executive Secretary; and Assistant Press Secretary at the White House. He returned to diplomacy briefly in 2010, at then-Secretary Clinton’s request, to lead the U.S. Delegation to the Human Rights Review Conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in Warsaw. Ambassador Guest serves on advisory councils to World Learning and the Atlantic Council; as a Director of the Friends of the National Museum of the History of the Romanian Jewry and the Holocaust; and, until this fall, on the National Security Education Board.