UNITED STATES SENATE
SUBJECT: Ambassadorial Nomination: Certificate of Demonstrated Competence — Foreign Service Act, Section 304(a)(4)
POST: Republic of Namibia
CANDIDATE: Randy W. Berry
Randy Berry is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Career Minister. He currently serves as the U.S. Ambassador to Nepal. Prior to that, Ambassador Berry was Deputy Assistant Secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and, before that, the State Department’s first Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons. He served as Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy, Kathmandu, and was twice a Principal Officer and Consul General — first at the U.S. Consulate General, Auckland, New Zealand and then at the U.S. Consulate General, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Ambassador Berry’s demonstrated skills as a leader, his broad ranging diplomatic experience in a career spanning almost three decades, and his successful tenure as Ambassador in Nepal all serve to make him a well-qualified candidate for Ambassador to the Republic of Namibia.
Among his other assignments, Ambassador Berry served as Deputy Principal Officer, U.S. Consulate General, Cape Town, South Africa; Senior Desk Officer for South Africa, Bureau of African Affairs, Department of State; and as Political Section Chief, and then Regional Refugee Coordinator, at the U.S. Embassy in Kampala, Uganda. Early in his career Ambassador Berry was Vice Consul at the U.S. Embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and then at the U.S. Embassy, Cairo, Egypt.
Ambassador Berry earned his B.A. from Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas in 1987 and he did graduate work at Adelaide University, Adelaide, Australia in 1988. He is the recipient of numerous State Department performance award and was also a Rotary Foundation Graduate Scholar. He speaks Spanish and Arabic.