Ian C. Kelly is a Senior Foreign Service Officer with the rank of Minister Counselor. His current assignment is serving as State Department Spokesman.
Before coming on as Spokesman, Ian was the Director of the Office of Russian Affairs in Washington, DC from August 2007-April 2009.
Before returning to Washington, he served as Public Affairs Advisor at the U.S. Mission to NATO (2004-2007), Press Attaché at Embassy Rome (2000-2004) and Press Attaché at the American Embassy in Ankara (1997-2000).
As Director of Democratic Initiatives to the Newly Independent States (NIS) at the State Department from 1994-1996, Kelly coordinated the activities of nearly a dozen federal agencies involved in democracy building in the former Soviet Union, and oversaw an annual budget of around $80 million. Prior to assuming that assignment, Kelly was a regional public affairs officer for the NIS, a job that took him to all twelve former Soviet republics.
His other assignments include Information Center Director in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (1990-92) and Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer in Leningrad and Moscow, U.S.S.R. (1987-90). He has studied Italian, Serbo-Croatian, and Turkish at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center of the State Department. He also speaks Russian.
Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Kelly taught Russian at Columbia University, and received his doctorate there in Slavic Languages and Literatures in 1986. He also holds a B.A. from St. Olaf College and a M.A. from Northwestern University. He is married and has three sons and one daughter.
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