UNITED STATES SENATE
SUBJECT: Ambassadorial Nomination: Certificate of Demonstrated Competence — Foreign Service Act, Section 304(a)(4)
POST: Republic of Chad
CANDIDATE: Alexander Mark Laskaris
Alexander Laskaris is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, with over three decades of experience. Currently he is serving as a Senior Advisor in the Bureau of African Affairs, and he has spent almost twenty years working specifically on African issues in a variety of roles including as the Deputy to the Commander for Civil Military Engagements at the United States Africa Command and as Ambassador to the Republic of Guinea. He has also served as Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Bujumbura, Burundi, the Political Section Chief of the U.S. Embassy in Angola and Desk Officer for Rwanda and Burundi in the State Department’s Office of Central African Affairs. His demonstrated success as a leader, coupled with his extensive knowledge of Africa in terms of both policy and operational issues, makes him a well-qualified candidate to serve as Ambassador to the Republic of Chad.
Over his career Mr. Laskaris has also served on the faculty of the National War College, as Consul General in Ebril, Iraq, and he was Team Leader of the Mosul Province Reconstruction Team in Ninewa Province, Iraq. Other assignments include as Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Pristina, Kosovo, and as a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff. Still earlier he was part of the Multinational Force and Observers peacekeeping team in the Sinai and also held assignments in Botswana and Liberia.
Mr. Laskaris earned a B.A degree from Georgetown University, and an M.A. degree from the U.S. Army War College in Washington, D.C. He is the recipient of multiple performance awards from the Department of State, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Civilian Distinguished Service Award and the Joint Civilian Service Commendation Award from the National Defense University. His foreign languages include French, Portuguese, Greek, Kurdish, Albanian and Spanish.