Advisory Council

Amb. Charles A. Ray, Chair

Amb. Charles A. Ray is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, served as U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Republic of Zimbabwe. In addition, he was the first U.S. Consul General to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, opening the Consulate General there in 1998.

 

Amb. Adrian Basora

Amb. Adrian A. Basora is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and co-Chair of its Eurasia Program. Previously Amb. Basora was the Director of the Eurasia Program, and its predecessor, the Project on Democratic Transitions, an in-depth assessment of the political, economic and social transitions of postcommunist Europe/Eurasia twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

 

Amb. Aurelia Brazeal 

Ambassador Aurelia (Rea) Brazeal retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2008, with the rank of Career Minister, after a distinguished 40-year career. An expert in leadership, management, strategic planning, crisis management, economic and trade negotiations and adept at engaging constructively with disparate audiences and resolving complex problems, she the first African American woman career Foreign Service officer to be promoted into the Senior Foreign Service and the first to be nominated as an Ambassador.

Amb. Henry “Hank” Cohen

A retired career diplomat and specialist in African and European affairs, Ambassador (ret.) Herman J. Cohen is President of Cohen and Woods International. Established in 1998, the consulting firm provides strategic planning services to African governments, and multinational corporations doing business in Africa.

 

Amb. June Carter Perry

Ambassador June Carter Perry is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a retired American Ambassador ( Sierra Leone from August 27, 2007 to August 28, 2009 and Lesotho from 2004-2007).

 

 

Amb. David Shinn 

David Shinn has been teaching in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University since 2001. He previously served for 37 years in the Foreign Service with assignments at embassies in Lebanon, Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritania, Cameroon, Sudan, and as ambassador to Burkina Faso and Ethiopia. 

 

Ibbo Mandaza

Ibbo Mandaza is a Zimbabwean academic, author and publisher. He holds a Doctorate of Philosophy (D.Phil) in Political Economy from the University of York in England (1979) and taught at the Universities of Botswana, Zambia, Dar re Salaam and Zimbabwe (part-time).

 

Pete Marocco

Pete Marocco is a security and operations consultant based in Washington D.C. He currently serves as an advisor to the Permanent Representative to the United Nations for the World Evangelical Alliance.

 

 

Franklin Moore

Franklin Moore, as a career member of the U.S. Senior Executive Service (SES), served twice as Deputy Assistant Administrator (DAA) for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Africa Bureau (2012-2014 and 2008-2010).