Jeffrey DeLaurentis

During his 28-year career in the US Foreign Service, Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis worked almost exclusively on Western Hemisphere issues and as a multilateral diplomat at the United Nations. He served as the first charge d’affaires at the US Embassy in Havana following the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, and as a principal negotiator for the many agreements concluded and dialogues launched between the two countries until January 2017. Previously, he served as the ambassador for special political affairs at the US Mission to the United Nations; deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs; and minister counselor for political affairs and Security Council coordinator at the US Mission to the United Nations. He began his State Department career in 1991 as a consular officer in Havana and returned to Cuba as Political-Economic section chief in 1999.  In Washington, he served as chief of staff to the under secretary of state for democracy and global affairs, special assistant to the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and director of Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council.

His last assignment in the Foreign Service was at the Harvard Kennedy School as a senior diplomatic fellow with the Belfer Center Future of Diplomacy Project. Subsequently, Ambassador DeLaurentis was appointed distinguished resident fellow in Latin American and multilateral diplomacy studies at the Georgetown University Institute for the Study of Diplomacy; the George S. McGovern visiting professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University; resident fellow at the Harvard University David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies’ Cuba Studies Program; and senior adviser with the Albright Stonebridge Group. He was a member of the Biden-Harris Presidential Transition Team and in 2021, served as the senior adviser for Security Council affairs at the U.S. Mission to the UN. DeLaurentis is a graduate of the Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service and Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. A recipient of multiple State Department awards, he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Diplomacy.