Co-President Karl Stoltz

KARL STOLTZ retired from the U.S. State Department of State in October 2024 after a 38-1/2 years as a Foreign Service Officer, primarily in Public Diplomacy positions. He served as an Assistant Information Officer in Wellington and Moscow; as Cultural Affairs Officer in Jakarta; as Branch Public Affairs Officer in Christchurch, NZ; and as Country PAO in Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, South Africa, and Russia.  

He also served twice as Deputy Chief of Mission in Myanmar and Denmark. In Washington, D.C., Karl was Office Director for Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs and for Citizen Exchanges in ECA. He also served as Regional Exchanges and Cultural Coordinator in USIA’s East Asia bureau and as Public Diplomacy Fellow at George Washington University. Karl’s final job at State was acting Deputy Coordinator and Senior Advisor at the R Bureau’s Global Engagement Center (GEC).

In retirement, Karl teaches a graduate course at GWU, serves as Chair of the Walter Roberts Endowment, and works part-time as a foreign policy advisor for Deft 9 Solutions LLC. Karl also has a prior background in public diplomacy with the governments of New Zealand and Australia. He speaks Russian, Indonesian, and Malaysian; his favorite free-time activities are travel, trivia contests, theatre and music, and participation in Hash House Harriers hiking clubs. Contact:  President@PublicDiplomacy.org. 

Co-President Vivian Walker

The former Executive Director of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, Dr. Vivian S. Walker is Practitioner in Residence at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Adjunct Professor in GU’s MSFS degree program, Chair of the Foreign Service Journal Editorial Board, co-editor of the Palgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacy, and Faculty Fellow at USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy. Previously, she taught at the Central European University, the National War College, and the National Defense College of the UAE.

A retired senior FSO, she twice served as a Deputy Chief of Mission (Croatia and Armenia), twice as an Office Director (Southeastern European Affairs and the Office of Press and Public Diplomacy for Europe), a Public Affairs Officer (Kazakhstan, with coverage of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan), a Cultural Affairs Officer (Tunisia) and an Information Officer (Haiti).

Other assignments include a two-year professorship in strategic studies at the National War College, a yearlong assignment as the State Department’s Regional Border Coordinator in Afghanistan, and a fellowship on the U.S. Atlantic Council, where she led the first interagency discussion on public diplomacy in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Dr. Walker publishes and lectures extensively on the practice of public diplomacy in complex information environments. She has a PhD in English from the University of Chicago. Contact:  President@PublicDiplomacy.org.

Shaz Akram

Arthur Berger

Hon. Brian Carlson

Tania Chomiak-Salvi

Nick Cull, Ph.D.

Joel Fischman

Robert Heath*

Hon. Gordon Humphrey

Susan R. Johnson*

Judy Jung-Hwa Kang

Michael Korff*, Ph.D.

Quentin Lide

Josh Manley

Michael McCarry

Mark Rebstock

Larry Schwartz

Karl Stoltz

Lam Tran*

M. Karen Walker, Ph.D.

Vivian Walker, Ph.D.

William Wanlund

Hon. Earl Anthony Wayne

Lynne Weil

Hon. Larry Wohlers

*non-voting