William B. Taylor is vice president, Europe and Russia at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Earlier, he was the special coordinator for Middle East Transitions in the U.S. State Department overseeing assistance and support to Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009. Ambassador Taylor returned to Kyiv as chargé d’affaires ad interim June 2019.

He also served as the U.S. government’s representative to the Mideast Quartet, which facilitated the Israeli disengagement from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, led by Special Envoy James Wolfensohn in Jerusalem. Prior to this assignment, he served in Baghdad as Director, Iraq Reconstruction Management Office (2004-2005), in Kabul as coordinator of USG and international assistance to Afghanistan (2002-2003) and in Washington with the rank of ambassador as coordinator of USG assistance to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (1992-2002).

Before coming to work for the Coordinator’s Office in July 1992, Ambassador Taylor spent five years in Brussels as the Special Deputy Defense Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, William Taft. Prior to that, Bill directed an in-house Defense Department think tank at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. Earlier, he served for five years on the staff of Senator Bill Bradley; before that, he directed the Department of Energy’s Office of Emergency Preparedness.

Ambassador Taylor is a graduate of West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School. He served as an infantry platoon leader and combat company commander in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and Germany.