A. Elizabeth Jones

Ambassador A. Elizabeth Jones, executive vice president, APCO Worldwide, has extensive international experience in Europe, Eurasia, South Asia and the Middle East. She spent 35 years in the United States Foreign Service, where she achieved the highest rank of career ambassador.

As assistant secretary for Europe and Eurasia for the U.S. Department of State, Ambassador Jones designed U.S. policies for NATO and European Union countries, Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia. She supervised 54 U.S. ambassadors and their embassies.

She held numerous other high-ranking government positions, including ambassador to Kazakhstan; principal deputy assistant secretary for the Near East bureau; senior advisor for Caspian energy diplomacy; executive assistant to Secretary of State Warren Christopher; deputy chief of mission, United States Embassy, Bonn, Germany; and deputy chief of mission, United States Embassy, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Ambassador Jones serves on several nonprofit boards, including the Atlantic Council, IREX, the Eurasia Foundation for Central Asia and the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.

Ambassador Jones was born in Germany in 1948, while her parents were assigned there with the U.S. Foreign Service. She attended local high schools in Moscow, U.S.S.R., and West Berlin, Germany, while her parents were on diplomatic assignments there. She graduated from Swarthmore College in 1970 with a B.A. in history and in 1986 earned a Masters degree in international relations from Boston University’s overseas program in Berlin. Ambassador Jones speaks Russian, German, and Arabic and is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Career Ambassador.