Jeffrey Davidow was sworn in by former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico on July 21, 1998. He was nominated by former President Clinton on April 28, 1998, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on June 26.

Ambassador Davidow has been a Presidential appointee on three prior occasions. He served previously as Ambassador to Zambia and Venezuela, and became Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs in 1996. A Foreign Service Officer of the U.S. Department of State, he has spent much of his 29-year career focusing on Latin America. In addition to his ambassadorial positions, he has served in American Embassies in Guatemala, Chile, and Venezuela. He was also posted to South Africa and Zimbabwe. Ambassador Davidow is the Senior Counselor at the Cohen Group.

Ambassador Davidow studied at the University of Massachusetts (BA, 1965), the University of Minnesota (MA, 1967), and at Osmania University in Hyderabad, India (1968-69). While in the Foreign Service he spent one year as a Fellow of the American Political Science Association working as a congressional staff aide (1979) and another year as a Fellow of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University (1982).