REPORT FOR THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
SUBJECT: Ambassadorial Nomination: Certificate of Demonstrated Competence — Foreign Service Act, Section 304(a)(4)
POST: Republic of Estonia
CANDIDATE: George P. Kent
George P. Kent, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, most recently served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the European and Eurasian Bureau at the U.S. Department of State. Previously, he was Deputy Chief of Mission in Kyiv, Ukraine. Prior to that, Kent was the Senior Anti-Corruption Coordinator in the State Department’s European Bureau. He has also served as Director for Europe and Asia in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. Since joining the Foreign Service in 1992, Kent has served in U.S. Diplomatic Missions in Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Warsaw, Poland; Bangkok, Thailand (twice), and Kyiv, Ukraine (twice). Kent has devoted the bulk of his career, spanning 30 years, to the European and Eurasian region. His extensive and substantive regional experience and educational background, coupled with his management experience and demonstrated ability to lead large interagency teams as well as policy-oriented offices, makes him a well-qualified candidate to be the U.S. Ambassador to Estonia.
Other State Department assignments include Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; Operations Center Watch Officer; and Thai desk officer. Kent holds an A.B. from Harvard in Russian History and Literature, an M.A. from Johns Hopkins’ SAIS, and an M.S. from the National Defense University’s Eisenhower School. He speaks Ukrainian, Russian, and Thai. Kent is a Kirby Simon Fund Trustee.